5/15 i may post some lame stuff but the underage japanese youtube
video of girl staring at camera is pretty stupid
\_ She's not even japanese
\_ Yes she is japanese, 1/2, you FUCKING DUMB ASS.
Your Japanese is horrible and your brain has been classified
as: narrow minded. Now go back to school and expand your mind.

4/1 http://www.cubo.cc (SFW)
\_ That is pretty awesome, but why are her eyes so bloodshot?
\_ Jesus! Do you really want to look at her closely enough to find
out?!? Keep moving that mouse before she _notices_ you!
\_ She looks Japanese.
\_ 1/4 of the Asians have hepatitis. She probably has it.
Yellow jaundice skin, bloody eyes. Typical hep.

3/12 Japanese Yen now trading at 100.28 to 1 USD
\_ When I was in Japan 11 years ago, it fluctuated between 110 and 120.
\_ It was around 116 when I was there in August. On the plus side,
this means I've made about 16% on the 5000 Yen that I never got
to exchanging back for dollars.
\_ 16% over eleven years? I'd guess that with inflation you lost
money.

2/21 Any Japanese here? Does Chikako Aoyama make any X-rated adult video?
I can only find R-rated ones on the net. Thanks.
\_ Don't ask crap like that on the motd. Take it to http://4chan.org.
\_ That's useful. Thx. -- OP
\_ key word: usually

2/12 Anyone from Peru here? Was race ever a factor in Fujimori's rise and
his demise? Thx.
\_ When I saw him speak at Zellerbach back in '92 or so, he said
his fellow Peruvians called him "El Chino." He also apologized
for not speaking Japanese, and he lapsed into Spanish
(translated) toward the end of his speech. Not sure how this
relates to your question, but thought I'd share. --erikred

12/5 Wow, she's pretty hot... She's 11?!?! Augh! My head-A-splode!
http://www.gamersgallery.com/gallery/showphoto.php/photo/42725
(bikini shot)
\_ The earlier they blossom, the earlier they'll get fat/ugly/die.
\_ More pics: http://leegy.egloos.com/2619337
\_ I so wanna penetrate her! -- 37-yr-old
\_ You all are pathetic--drooling over a child.
\_ You all are pathetic--drooling over a child. - motd boob guy
\_ She is 14 now, but perhaps 11 when these were taken. In any
case, she is waaay too young for me.
\_ Jackie Johnson looks better. -dimwit

10/17 What are some examples of successful & sustainable colonies?
\_ Israel
\_ A colony of what country, USA? You're funny.
\_ We do give them a few billion a year. Same with Egypt.
I doubt Egypt or Israel would exist in its present state
without our aid. You could argue that they'd be better off
in a different version.
\_ phillipines (better troll)
\_ A colony of what country, USA? You'rnes (better troll)
\_ A colony of what country?
\_ Ants and Bees
\_ Sheffield, Cairo, Marco Nicosia, Odessa, Sabishii, Mangala,
Dorsa Brevia, Christianopolis, Acheron
\_ USA
\_ No you stupid. USA is not a colony, USA is a sovereign
nation and has been since 1776. A colony is one that depends
on the motherland. Georgia, Massachussettes, etc were
colonies of England. Likewise, Poland, France, etc were
colonies of Nazi Germany. They're all sovereign entities
now, but not colonies.
\_ You have a different definition of success than me, then.
\_ Hong Kong (before it went back to China.)
\_ The United States of America
\_ Someone already said "USA" above.
\_ Maybe they meant Usa, Japan?
\_ My wife's family is originally from Usa, Japan. --erikred
\_ Her family were colonists? How cool is that!
\_ Oh, the truths spoken in ignorance. :) Usa's a
fishing town on the southern coast of Shikoku.
There's plenty of speculation about internat'l
relations among the fisherfolk, even under the
Tokugawa isolation policy. --erikred
\_ I'm aware of Usa, Japan. You know about the
post-WW2 shipping labels, right?
\_ I'm aware of the "Made in Usa" urban legend,
yes.
\_ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usa%2C_Japan
It says the myth part is that the city was
renamed, not that anything was shipped
from there.
\_ Over the long term? None. They always either collapse or break
away and go independent. In a few cases they become absorbed but
that is much rarer.
\_ Breaking away doesn't mean they aren't successful and/or
sustainable. The USA has been very helpful to the UK in the 20th
century.
\_ If it breaks away it isn't a colony.
\_ Ok, fine. But the USA, Australia, NZ are still cultural
colonies of England in a broad sense.
\_ Sure, ok, they all speak some form of English and have
some sort of democracy so in a "broad sense", sure. I
won't argue that. In a broad sense.
\_ Canada and Australia are still under the Queen
of England, no? I would say that Canada, USA,
and Australia are examples of colonies that were
extremely successful and sustainable at least until
the point they broke away. What about Hawaii or
Puerto Rico? How do you classify those?
\_ I don't know about you but Iraq has been sustainable so
far and we're getting a hecka amount of oil from them.
\_ I don't think we're getting any oil from them. Damn, trolled.
\_ We are, just not as much as hoped. Note the huge
military presence in key oil refineries.
\_ The Spice must flow!
\_ You know for a SF epic written in the back of a van
behind the old Chronicle/Examiner building, there are
an amazing amount of parallels you can draw between
Dune and current events. Frank Herbert, you ruled.
\_ Here's hoping he got the Kwisatch Haderach part wrong...
\_ You just tipped the geek meter. Grats.
\_ Northern Ireland.

9/25 As you get older, the more racist you become because you have
less inhibition, study shows:
http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/labnotes/archive/2007/09/25/why-grandpa-talks-like-chris-rock-in-nc-17-mode.aspx
\_ Uhm... yeah. Sure. Whatever.
\_ Do old people still say Negros or is that a thing of the past?
\_ My grandpa still says Japs. So what?
\_ So does my dad, all them jewish princesses --Jon
\_ They are Japs. How is that offensive? It's like them calling
us Yankees.
\_ RACIST!
\_ Are you Japanese or Japanese-American?
\_ No, but are you going to tell me that calling Japanese
people Japanese (Japs for short) is racist? Should
the British be offended if we call them Brits?
\_ The word Jap has a distinct perjorative history, so
yes, calling Japanese people Japs is offensive. Calling
them Japanese is not. If you cannot spot the difference,
you may be to short for this ride. --erikred
\_ There's no difference and if Japs are offended
by being called Japs then they need thicker
skins. It's not the same as "chink" or "gook".
"Japs" are what they are!
\_ Either you're a bad troll, or you don't realize
that you're an idiot.

7/30 http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2007/fit.nation/obesity.map
Fattest states: The South.
\_ Hmmm, let's see. Diet high in fats. Highest obesity rates....
Eureka! You've discovered the secret! Wowerz!
\_ Does the cheese explain Wisonsin? Or was that Michigan?
\_ I bet the heat also plays a part. It's too hot to want to
be active outside. People just drive around everywhere with
the AC on. White people are suited to live in shady forests,
not sweltering suburbs.

7/20 Anyone here ever work with a Japanese organization? I find it very
frustrating! At least with the firm we deal with, although I am
sure they are very bright based on their achievements, they are
constantly making small mistakes. Their first course of action is
always to blame us first! Not once has the error ever been on our
side once tracked down and yet they always blame us first! And we
can't tell them that because it would be disrespectful to do so.
In fact, we have to tell our senior managers to tell their senior
managers because direct assignment of blame (i.e. your guys
screwed up) is a no-no, too. I am frustrated with their way of
doing business and I find it adversarial, which wouldn't be so bad
if they weren't the ones always screwing things up and then trying
to call us on it.
\_ why give them respect if they don't desever it. let them
commit sepaku
\_ Make sure you learn the phrase "Gama Su!, Gama Su!"
Seriously, this is a free market. You don't have to put up with
bullshit like this. Switch to another provider/partner. That
is the beauty of our efficient free market economy.
\_ Leave messages around saying "You will be crushed by China"
\_ Which Japanese comapny is that?
\_ This almost seems like a troll to me, as it appears that the op
has had to deal with only one firm. But regardless: isn't this
how every company/group is? Playing the passing-the-blame game?
\_ Not if it's clearly never our problem. If they spent time
diagnosing it before quickly calling us right away they
would find the problem themselves. That is, they always find
the problem themselves, but not before calling us to blame
us first. It's the cultural thing that bugs me. We can't
say "Not our problem. Check out your end." because it is
disrespectful, but they seem to have no problem telling us
"Please check things out on your end." My management got
mad at me because their management was upset that we told
them that the problem was theirs. I was told "You are 100%
correct, but you can't do that in Japan. You have to tell
your senior, senior management (way far out of the loop) who
will relay it to their senior management and then back down
to people at your level." Is that true or is that a load of crap?
If that's the way they do business it's a wonder they can
accomplish anything. There's also a doublestandard, because
their engineers have no problems telling us the problem must
be ours even when it never is.
\_ If they blame you directly, blame them directly. Who cares
about the consequences. Why is it you that has to adapt
to their customs and not the other way around?
\_ I hope with the global economy we have, that this is not a
widespread case and this company/group is just trying to use
the "stupid Americans who don't understand our culture" as
an unfair leverage to themselves. I only know one person
who works with a Japanese company on regular basis, and the
only complaint he has is how much he is forced to drink
whenever he has to have a meeting with them. Of course,
he is Asian, so they may treat him differently. It's also
possible that your manager or his/her manager IS a "stupid
American..." and blowing things out of proportion. Also,
is this venture an equal partner venture, or is one company
benefitting more from the other? I am not a Japanese, but
I wouldn't expect to have to worry about culture gap/respect
issue to come into play at engineer level. Maybe the guy
you "offended" is sleeping with his company exec's daughter
or something. But I still wouldn't blanket the statement
to cover the Japanese as a whole if you've only dealt with
this one firm.
\_ The Japanese are benefitting by this arrangement far
more than we are. Also, the reason I used a blanket
statement is that other people at work (my management)
who deal with the Japanese claim that it's endemic to
Japanese culture. I have no experience otherwise,
hence my question if anyone else has experience with
working with the Japanese.
\_ If you think that is bad, get Sun, EMC and Veritas in one room
together and get them to agree who is responsible for an
outage...
\_ Or Oracle, Sun, and Veritas.
\_ Just to be clear: this is not endemic to all Japanese companies,
nor is it unique to Japanese companies. Unless this company is a
make-or-break client, screw cultural sensitivity and call them on
it. --erikred

6/23 In a technologically symmetrical war, why would historians (on
the History Channel) say that taking over Okinawa exacted a heavy
toll on the Americans? The total stat on the History Channel is:
American deaths: 12,000
Japanese deaths: 120,000
This is a technologically symmetrical war, and the Japanese had
the advantage of home-base and concealment. If this exacted a heavy
toll on the Americans, then what do you call the Japanese defeat?
\_ The estimated kill ratio of American vs. Vietcong was 1:10 to
1:20. Many US generals were pissed off about the pullback since
this kill ratio in the historical context is clearly a victory.
\_ Kill ratios don't mean diddly squat when you are an occupying
force.
\_ kill ratio is everything. The better the ratio the more
likely the other side will see that it's pointless to
resist.
\_ Which is why time and time again occupying forces have
insanely high kill ratios and the other side doesn't
stop fighting. If you get your panties in a "WE WERE
WINNING DAMNIT" wad when someone mentions Vietnam,
then how about we talk about Soviet Afghanistan, or
France and Algeria, or Italy and Ethiopia, or Britian
and India. And so on.
\_ kill ratio is irrelevant if there is some arbitrary
threshold where political pressure at home of the enemy
gets them to withdraw. What was the kill ratio in somolia,
vs how many US deaths did it take us to tuck tail and return
home? How about rwanda? A few belgian deaths and the UN
went home while the genocide raged...
\_ American public tolerance for war:
bool tolerateWar(int enemyDeaths, int americanDeaths) {
float ratio = americanDeaths / enemyDeaths;
if (year <= 1950) return (ratio <= 1/10)
else if (year <= 1970) return (ratio <= 1/100)
else if (year <= 1990) return (ratio <= 1/1000)
else if (year <= 2000) return (ratio <= 1/10000)
else if (year <= 3000) return (ratio <= 1/10000000);
}
\_ There should be a "hatredOfEnemy" factor in there somewhere.
I think part of the problem now and in Vietnam is we didn't
really buy into the enemy being our enemy. I.e. "why are we
there". For example if we were actively defending ourselves
or an unambiguous ally from aggression then I think we would
"tolerate" huge numbers of deaths.
\- i dont know the context of where you are coming from, but
in addition to comparing the capabilities of the (two) sides,
the offensive/defensive balance changes over time, e.g.
e.g. development of the tank in ww2 was a change from trenches
+ fixed machine guns. coastal batteries, mine fields are defensives,
airpower, offensive. so the casualities cant simply be compared
1:1. btw, the off/def approach is more of an approach rather than
a strict category. see e.g. http://tinyurl.com/2ysgtu
\_ You can't compare Japanese expectations and tolerance of casualties
at the time to that of the U.S. Furthermore, while the Japanese
had the advantages you mention, the U.S. had complete air
superiority, 100% reinforcement flexibility (as opposed to 0% for
the Japanese), and most importantly, were able to set the conditions
for battle. The Japanese could not maneuver outside of their
fortifications without being cut down by vastly superior firepower,
and could only react to U.S. initiative. The 12k U.S. deaths are
the result of the advantages the Japanese had, while the overall
balance of casualties shows how far in favor of the U.S. the
conditions for battle were. Lastly I wouldn't go so far as to say
that, by 1945, the Americans and Japanese were fighting anything
even close to a technologically symmetrical war. -John
\_ You forgot another thing. Ryukyu was an independent kingdom
for more than 2000 years before being annexed by Japan in 1895.
Japanese never really considered citizens in Ryukyu island
(so called Okinawa) "real" Japanese anyway. So, part of the
reason for such high tolerance of casualties was because
Japanese themselves were performing genocide on that island any
way. Aside from the fact that Ryukyu was this close to the
Japanese main island, Japenese didn't really give a crap about
people who lives there.
\_ Good point -- nonetheless, the Japanese suffered 66,000
purely military casualties; the 140k or so civilians dead
were another thing entirely, as below poster correctly
points out. At the same time, you may want to draw a
comparison with the battle of Saipan for comparisons on how
the Japanese viewed civilian casualties. The IJN/IJA high
command was not terribly concerned with civilians, ethnic
Japanese or not. -John
\_ Since so many Japanese were using suicide bombing tactics at
that time, I am not sure you can really call this battle
symmetric.
\_ Wikipedia has 12k US dead, 66K Japanese. If you count wounded
it is more like 50k to 83k. Civilians really don't count.

6/2 Ever since having okonomiyaki in Japan, I've been trying to find
a place in the Bay Area that serves it. Does anyone know of any
in the Silicon Valley?
\- i dont really like that stuff, on the other hand it isnt
very standarized, but you can look here for advisories in your
area: http://tinyurl.com/2u2soc sounds like japantown/sf isnt
what you are looking for.
\_ There used to be a place in SV, but they closed. Benihana's
stuff is fine for tourists but crap for anyone who's actually
eaten okonomiyaki in Japan. Sorry, no luck. --erikred
\_ I've frequented a okonomiyaki place for locals next to an NEC plant
in Yokohamai a decade ago. Very good.

4/9 "If I win, I will be terrified."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYgZYkTYUaQ
\_ Reminds me of the events director Varun. -mrauser
\_ Sort of reminds me of Micheal Savage.
\_ Sort of reminds me of Mussolini.
\_ I wonder if he takes himself seriously? I doubt it.

3/1 http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070228/ap_on_re_as/japan_whaling_ship
What kind of scientific study needs to kill 860 whales a year? Is it
the "In Search of the Best Tasting Whale" study?
\_ Pretty much. Although personally, I don't see anything wrong with
eating non-endangered whales.
\_ And I don't see anything wrong with eating people (the least
endangered mammal on the planet), I can see, though, how
reasonable people may be agin' it. -phuqm
endangered mammal on the planet), I can see, though, how reasonable
people may be agin' it. -phuqm
\_ Can we start with you?
\_ I thought whales are endangered, and that's why there is control
on whaling. No?
\_ I'm too busy to look up the economist article right now, but
many species of whales are no longer endangered. (If they
ever were, not sure). Anyway, the Japanese want to hunt the
Minsk whale, which is not endangered. However, there now
seems to be some sort of whale cult that is against all
whaling, period.
\_ I see. Thanks.
\_ Question for you, do you think it is o.k. to
\_ Question for you, do you think it should be o.k. to
eat Chimps and Bonobos ?

10/20 http://csua.org/u/h9l (washingtonpost.com)
Super-moron Krauthammer confirms his "special" status
"The nuclear Japan card remains the only one that carries even the
remote possibility of reversing North Korea's nuclear program."
\_ Heh. "Super-moron". Again with the lefties who dismiss people by
calling them dumb. Can't you guys learn a new trick?
\_ How about this: Flip-flopping cut-and-runner Krauthammer....
\_ Ah, this is your knee-jerk about what righties say?
\_ Don't let me spoonfeed it to you. C'mon.

10/12 Why do numbers in some street addresses have so many digits? There are
only ten houses on the one-block dead-end street in Fremont that I live
on, but the numbers start at 34000. On the other hand, street numbers
in the Bay Farm area in Alameda only have two or three digits.
\_ IIRC, numbers don't repeat in a given "line", so if you find the
next street before/after that cul-de-sac that's roughly in a line
w/ it, the numbers will continue that way. I have a similar deal.
I'm on a relatively long st. w/ a 4 digit address, but the 10 house
cul-de-sac around the corner is 5-digit, because it points the
direction of the rest of the (fairly long) city.
\_ some address numbering trivia. There are a number of long streets
running through Orange County which go through multiple cities,
each with their own numbering scheme. Usually, it's not a source
of much confusion since most cities cooperate. But there are/were
small stretches (like < 6 blocks) in unincorporated areas of the
county which are on the county numbering scheme -- usually 5 digits
instead of the 4 digits that most cities use/used. Yeah, that's
fun trying to find an address -- 3340 3350 3360 27400 27420 3520 ...
\_ In Florence (Italy), numbers run in disjoint blue (residential)
and red (commercial) sequences. So you can have 1 2 3 4 1 5
6 2 7 3 4 8 and so on. -tom
\_ disjoint is not really the right word.
\_ How do you tell which sequence it is from the address on an
envelop? Are people required to write/print with red and blue
ink?
\_ Dunno, maybe they just do "R15" or something. -tom
\- on an envelope or otherwise you write ###r if it is
"rosso". Stendahl's famous novel "The Red and the Black"
is about a fight between people with red and blue/black
addresses in Florence, which he wrote after having a
breakdown there trying to find the right address.
YMWTG(stendahl syndrome, florence).
\_ All I gotta say is "Japanese Addressing Schemes" particularly
say in Tokyo or Kyoto. Street numbers are picked on totally
an arbitrary basis many times -- family tradition, good luck,
numerology, whatever.

9/20 Who's the real boss in Thailand:
http://www.csua.org/u/gy8 (Yahoo! News)
"If the king didn't give a nod, this never would have been possible."
"The King ... rarely enters the political arena, but when he does,
everyone listens and obeys"
King Bhumibol is no QE II.
\_ I think it's more like "everyone obeys, and he ensures everyone
continues to obey by not throging his weight around too much."
\_ this is something Americans don't like to admit. Americans love
to talk about democracies, yet in Asia, having a symbolic King
and/or Emperor tend to stabalize the politics. Thailand is a prime
example.
\_ The four most successful economies other than Japan in the past
50 years in Asia have been Hong Kong, South Korea, Taiwan, and
Singapore. None of them have kings or emperors. China hasn't
had an emperor in a while, and its economic and political rise
has come in the past 20 years with the last emperor long dead.
In fact, the only 2 countries in Asia with kings are Thailand
and Japan, and Thailand isn't exactly a stable country now.
\_ Hong Kong was under the UK for most of the past 50 years, and
UK has a Queen.
\_ Sorry, but I'm pretty sure that the vast majority of the
locals in Hong Kong did not recognize the Queen of England
as their spiritual head of state. They might technically
have been under England, but if you're telling me that
those Hong Kong street vendors and workers who can't speak
a word of English cared about the Queen of England's
political position enough to allow her to "stabilize"
Hong Kong, that's ridiculous.
\_ "the only 2 countries in Asia with kings are Thailand and
Japan". Hmm, let's see: King Hamad of Bahrain, King Wangchuck
of Bhutan, Sultan Bokliah of Brunei, King Sihamoni of
Cambodia, King Gyanendra of Nepal, Sultan Qaboos of Oman,
Emir Hamad of Qatar. If you also count non-sovereign
heriditary monarchs, there are seven Sultans in Malaysia and
six Emirs in the UAE.
\_ Americans? Asia? High on crack? What about the U.K., Canada,
Sweeden, Denmark, Jamaica, and the Netherlands, just picking
countries at random? Are they all part of the vast "America is
big hipocrite who not understand Asia" conspiracy also?
\_ lol
\_ This isn't tested though. I haven't read the article. But it's a
military coup. What would be interesting is if kingy went against
the one in power. "Oh king approves, that's all right then."
\_ Japanese history is full of events like this. For example
the Meiji Restoration. Factions support or resist the
EMPEROR not the KING btw. Japan doesn't have a "king".
\_ The King of Thailand has a much more active role in politics
than the symbolic monarchs of Japan, England, Denmark, and
Sweden, but a much less active role than that of the kings of, say,
Brunei or Tongo.
\_ Just this morning I read this in the Sept 16 issue of The Economist:
"There have been disquieting rumors of plots to overthrow or even
assassinate the the prime minister. ... ... Mr Thaksin is
apparently unfazed by the conspiracy theories. He has left the
country on a long foreign trip."
\_ A Thai friend of mine says people are happy for the coup because
the Prime Minister was a corrupt power hungry asshole.
\_ Add "and nepotistic" for the win.

8/22 http://www.cnn.com/2006/TRAVEL/ADVISOR/08/22/business.etiquette
How to not be a dumb American. I sure learned alot from this article.
\_ Dude, you learned a lot from this article? Are you serious? You
didn't know that you should research the culture of the country
you're attempting to do business in before you go to do business?
\_ 'Chaney says, adding, "you never know when you're in one of those
countries."' BS.

7/24 Kill you BOINC processes to avoid rolling blackouts. Better yet, power
off you machines and monitors when leaving work. Cuts back on both the
power to run the machine and the power to run the A/C to cool the room.
\_ By the time you leave work, the power crisis is over.
\_ By the time you've figured out how to solve the crisis,
the problem is no longer there.
\_ Not everybody stays at work till 7pm when peak hour ends.
\_ Leave the letter '' out of you sentences to save powe.
\_ Nuclear power would have solved this. The commie Frogs use it
extensively, so do the Japanese. How can they do it and we can't?
Because they standardize their plants. I say, grab some old
Navy ships with nuclear reactors and have those badboys working
again.
\_ Their citizenry also doesn't have as much power to say "NIMBY!"
Well, then again, post New Lincoln... who knows?
Well, then again, post-Kelo... who knows?
\_ There's a huge NIMBY movement in Japan, which is why the
reactors are in neighborhoods with less vocal residents (i.e.,
villages where people value the economic benefits more than
they fear the risks).
\_ In purely cynical terms it makes more sense to put a
potentially city destroying power plant in a less populated
area.
\_ s/cynical/practical/

7/22 When a Japanese restaurant puts in words like sukiyaki, robato,
and other exotic Japanese names what do they mean?
\_ if that's exotic, stay in hoboken.
\_ Why are you so mean? How is this question more stupid
than the one below that says "What's the difference
between sushi and sashimi?"
\_ if this isn't a troll, ask the server

7/5 What's the big deal about NK testing firing some missiles? I mean
don't we test fire missiles all the time? We must've test
fired thousands of missiles, heck, we still drop bombs
wherever we feel like, and that's all fine. But another
sovereign nation can't test fire a fucking missiles? Last I
recall NK hasn't dropped bombs on anyone except Korea. We have
dropped Nuclear Bombs, Cluster Bombs, all kinds of fucking
bombs everywhere around the globe, but I guess it's ok because
we are the good guys, and we never attack unless being
attacked, ops, I mean we never, never mind.
\_ You're right, it's about international prestige. NK wants some,
the U.S. doesn't want to give it to them.
\_ It's not just the US; Japan's objecting to NK testing missiles,
too. That's not about prestige, that's self-preservation. If
NK can target Tokyo, Japan believes NK will use this to blackmail
Japan for more economic/agrarian aid. Japan has reason to think so;
cf. NK's abduction of Japanese citizens and subsequent denial of
such.
\_ Plus the fake fishing boats in Japan waters.
\_ Plus the underground tunnels across the 38deg parallel.
\_ The funny thing is, there is little symphathy toward Japan
across Asia. Japanese need to think a bit hard on why being
targeted by N.Korea doesn't yield any symphathy among its
neighbors.
\_ In other news, Japan was dressed like it wanted to be
targetted.
\_ Dude, from the *U.S.* perspective Japan is very important,
our 4th largest trading partner. We don't want to see them
nuked or blackmailed.
\_ China is the 3rd largest trading partner, but US doesn't
mind China being nuked or blackmailed at all. In fact,
US probably going to nuke China when it got a chance.
what does trade has anything to do with all this?
\_ No one (apart from the Uighurs and some militant
Tibetans in exile) wants to nuke China. The US is
pursuing a policy of encouraging the PRC to abandon
its ersatz Communism in favor of capitalism (which
many people think will somehow lead to democratic
reform; I disagree on the basis that the people in
power in the PRC are much more likely to use the
economic miracle to consolidate their own power at the
expense of the serf class they rule). Also, DPRK
cannot blackmail PRC because PRC controls the oil
pipeline that leads into the DPRK; when DPRK last tried
to get snarky with PRC, there was an "accident" that
shut down the pipeline for nearly a week. DPRK backed
down.
\_ economic propsperity will lead to political reform.
The Chinese government today is, believe me or not,
a lot more transparent than 15 years ago. But
don't put your bet on full western-style democracy.
it has been tried and didn't work. Another history
lesson of the day, China is the first country in
East Asia that established a Democratic Republic
with 5 branch of government.
\_ Despite Sun Yat-sen's idealistic intentions,
the Republic of China was never a Western-style
democracy; it was an oligarchy, and it quickly
devolved into a military dictatorship. It was
disaffection with the KMT's stranglehold on the
ersatz democracy that fueled Mao & Co.'s rise to
power. After the founding of the PRC, democracy
became something less than lip service; cf.
Gang of Four.
\_ They just fired a 7th (!!). I wonder how many NK comrades literally
starve for every compensatory phallic NK missle launch.
\_ You do know these missiles are called "Nodong," right?
\_ Yeah!!! We should all quick picking on poor little NK. After all
it was Western agression that provoked them into starting the
Korean War! Get you fcking head out of the sand. NK perfects
missile technology, it'll be nuclear yellow mornings for you
libs in the West coasts all the time. And please don't give tell me
you don't know about the thousands of conventional arty pieces
pointed at Seoul, ready to level it at the first sign of attack.
\_ As the only nation on this planet in the history of
mankind that have used a nuclear weapon against millions
of civilian lives, and wants to develop "bunker busting
nukes" against an enemy so weak they can't even fight us
face to face, we really have no right to tell anyone
what to do about nuclear weapons. Just remember, what
goes around, comes around. 75% of the world agrees that
the US is the biggest threat to world peace. It is time
you get your head out of the sand and ask "why".
\_ Why if 75% say so then it must be true! I can see how the
sun never sets on the U.S. flag! I can see English being
forced on the locals. Yes, sirree! We are threat to world
peace with all the food we give away, all the money we
give away to those who play ball with us, my gawd, all that
"shame" from Hiroshima (100k dead vs. 2mil USGI possibly
dying) has lead us to the warpath! You know we wanted
to rewrite the Vietnamese lang. just like the French did.
You know we wanted to go all the way to Beijing. By golly
you have us pegged as conquering squatters we are.
\_ The US did go all the way to Beijing in 1900.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-Nation_Alliance
\_ Nice. Maybe they think we're a threat because of what we
actually HAVE done, largely supporting and funding
destabilizing influences the world over.
\_ you mean how we've been the most generous and pacifist
power the world has ever seen?
\_ US is neither most generous (in the percentage of
is GDP) nor pacifist. We've been overthrown
democratic governments, founding garallias,
and invade soverign nation against UN charter.
Exactly what make you think US is a pacifist?
\_ Generous: we give more. We also give a lot more
\_ nope. per pecentage of GDP, US doesn't give
more.
in private donations. Pacifist: name any country
\_ private donation doesnt count as Nation's
donation. good try to spin the way through
in the past with any amount of power that didn't
try to form an empire. I can only name one that
has more power than the rest of the world
combined and barely uses it. This is a very
pacifist and passive country.
\_ Do you want to talk about Iran in 1953?
Guatamola? Chili? and latest Iraq? If you
want to talk about neighbors, you want to
talk about our invasion against Canada?
our advanture with Mexico? I haven't start
talking about all these Indian nations because
inferior race doesn't count as humans.
\_ And Kenneth Lay was a great philanthropist.
\_ Snarky. Ignorant.
\_ He was! How's that ignorant?
\_ More generous and pacifistic than Sweden? Canada?
The Netherlands? I think not.
\_ I was unaware Sweden, Canada, and the Netherlands
were super powers. I apologise to you and the
rest of the motd for not recognising these three
great nations for the super powers they are.
\_ The phrase was "power" not "super power." But
yeah, if you want to claim that the United
States is the most generous and pacifistic
superpower in the world, that would be hard
to argue with, since we are also the only
superpower in the world. We are also,
incidently, the greediest and most warmongering
superpower in the world. But in either case,
you aren't saying a whole lot.
\_ Split any hairs lately? Use Power or Super
Power. No nation with power over their
neighbors has ever been as generous or as
pacifistic as the US. How's that? No
nation has ever had the power the US has
now and pray they don't ever because it's
only down hill from here.
\_ Okay, I agree with you on this.
\_ you are sooooooooooo ignorant of history.
google the term "pax sinica."
\_ Hello, the Middle Kingdom invented
gunboat diplomacy before there were
gunboats. Also, if the MK had an
economic dispute (i.e., if you didn't
pay your tribute), they'd invade and
destroy. This would seem to invalidate
the pacifist requirement.
\_ you have no idea what you are
talking about. tribute is more
similar to trade agreement than
what you think it is. But since
you are clueless beyond help, I
am not going to elaborate further.
\_ LOLicious! You have nothing to
back up your revisionist view
of the Middle Kingdom as last
benign military force, so you
accuse me of not knowing what
I'm talking about. -10 points
for House ChiCom Troll!
\_ Hey, don't forget the kindness of
the Islamic empire. As long as
you agreed with them on
everything, they wouldn't murder
everyone and rape all the women!
What elightenment!
\_ hmm... let see... why all the
fucking Jews seeking refuge in
those Islamic empire if they are
being murdered and raped?
\_ 1) Because they had _less_
chance of being raped in Islamic
world than in Xian world; google
Pogroms. 2) Because pp has
overstated the case even more
than revisionist ChiCom Troll.
\_ Yeah, each of those countries can airlift
people after tsunamis, hurricanes, earthquakes
easily. Why they protect thousands of miles
of land that's not even theirs!
\_ Overseas Development Aid as a percentage of GDP
Denmark 0.96%
Norway .89
Sweden .83
Netherlands .81
Luxembourg .77
Belgium .43
Ireland .40
France .38
Japan .23
United States .13
\_ Are you including private donations? No.
I think you'll be surprised at just how
generous Americans really are if you
bothered to check that instead of just
looking at government funded programs, but
Americans are all greedy and selfish and
insular and stupid so don't worry about it.
\_ Give me the facts then, instead of just
spouting your opinion. Including private
donations, who is the most generous?
Cite your source, please.
\_ Fighting the war on terror is equivalent
to development aid, because terror impedes
development. The defense cost and the Bush
War in Iraq are greater than any dev aid
we've ever seen, and therefore the US is
the most generous nation on the planet.
God Bless! -Bush Cheney Lay Skilling #1!
\_ what about china?
\_ China is not exactly in the position
to help anyone. If China can leveage
millions of people out of poverty, it
will be considered an act of huge
favor toward humanintarian cause.
\_ Seeing how many super powers on this list: 1
\_ screw this percentage of GDP crap, and show
us the real absolute numbers. Do you think
the needy will be more grateful for $100
from a rich man than $1 from a pauper?
\_ No, but Jesus taught that the latter
is a bigger gift.
\_ Who?
\_ Jesus Holy-shit Christ.
\_ What?! I learned on the motd
that His middle name was
"tapdancing". Is this a
different guy?
\_ Oh come on, he was doing a good job
lying with statistics. Don't try to
bring hard numbers into it.
\_ How is percentage lying? I believe
the claim was "most generous"
Generosity is a measure of sacrifice,
not absolute dollar value.
\_ The US did go all the way to Beijing in 1900.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-Nation_Alliance
\_ US is the leading superpower. If it wasn't US, it would be
Spain, France, Holland, Germany, UK, China, Japan, or someone
else. Don't think that w/o the US the power vacuum would be
filled with some peaceloving nation. As world powers decline,
others rise to take their place. Only the names change.
\_ Those people should be asked their definition of "World
Peace." I don't see how we have World Peace now, so how
can anyone threaten it? Is Dafur (and other such places)
not the automatic biggest threat to world peace, since
they keep it from existing in the first place?
\_ Darfur doesn't count to these people. They're brown,
they're foreign, they have a different religion/culture/
language/everything and worst of all, they're poor so if
they're getting slaughtered hey let's just have another
UN meeting in a few months to discuss the exact definition
of genocide. Once the UN's Human Rights Commission's
sub-committee on the definition of genocide gets back to
us next year we can then decide if that definition fits
Darfur but only after the government there releases figures
telling us how many they're killing per day and why each
one was killed.
\_ We didn't kill *millions* with nuclear weapons, more like
300,000. Not to justify it or anything, just pointing out
that you're off by a factor of ten.
\_ Agreed. About the same number of civilians the Japanese
killed in the Rape of Nanjing alone.
\_ Agreed. About the same as the number of civilians the
Japanese killed in the Rape of Nanjing alone.
\_ I know where you're coming from, but believe me, Kim Jong Il is not
the guy you want to defend on this sovereignty issue.

6/22 http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060622/od_nm/life_sex_dc
Well, there's your problem!
\_ This line is great: "Demographers say a rate of 2.1 [children born
per woman lifetime] is needed to keep a population from declining."
Reuters apparently needs to invoke the authority of "demographers"
to confirm simple arithmetic.
\_ Simple arithmetic would suggest you need 2.0BPW. The variable
rates of infant mortality and gender ratio at birth are why you
ask a demographer.
\_ Point taken. I think I found it so silly because the
fertility rate in Japan is listed in the article as bein
1.25, which is obviously a declining population.
\_ Theoretically you could have a stable population if the
gender ratio at birth was M:F 20:80
\_ Or probably even 1:99.
\_ Well I meant "given 1.25 BPW". Let's not go
overboard on male fantasies, OK ;-) -pp
\_ I keep wondering though, isn't it about the time when we
should instead start worrying about stabilizing the
population and adjusting our economies to the new
demographics? Growing population numbers, even
without considering the on-going economic growth
and quality of life improvements, place even
greater demands upon the natural resources and the
environment. Do we even know for how long will this
planet sustain the current living standards for 6B
people? What about the projected 10B people at the
end of this century?
\_ Well, duh. That's why we're teaching the world about
abstinence!
\_ Who is this "we" that is going to stabilize the population?
Who decides who is allowed to breed or not and how many times?
And a quick look at demographics of any wealthy vs. any poor
nation (excluding the few being wiped out by AIDS) will show
that rich nations have declining birth rates while poor ones
have very high rates. So, the best way to reduce population
is to improve the standard of living in poor countries. As
\_ Correlation is not causation.
And the rest of this post is beyond silly.
\_ If you've got nothing to say, say nothing. If it is
silly then shoot it down in a sentence or two, but I'm
sure you haven't done any research or reading on this
so not only will you not, you can't.
\_ Wow. Midday margaritas make for bad motd'ing. I totally
conflated your comments with the above poster in replying.
Sorry. Nuked my pointless drivel. However, the silver
bullet is not simply wealth (ergo the correlation/causation)
but education (which comes along with higher SoL).
\_ That's fine. I'll agree education = higher SOL but
that will not come without the wealth to support it
which requires a real economy, not one based on charity.
soon as we stop flooding them with money, they'll have a
chance to form real economies with real products and real
workers and engage in trade with other countries. Right now
the West has destroyed the ability of poor nations to grow
healthy economies instead of "Charity Based Economies" where
there is a disincentive for the local population to do
anything productive.
\_ Blasphemy! Every new child is a gift. "Be fruitful..."
Eventually people will fight each other or starve and
it will be a happy equilibrium. The world can physically
support many more. We must keep going until it's literally
impossible to support more. After all, whose life would you
deny, just to make your life better? Even bringing up
population control shows that you are sick.

6/19 O Lazy Web, research for me: a Japanese company plans to market a
SoundBug-based head-sound apparatus. Why wouldn't reverberating your
skull slosh your brain around like a concussion?
\_ without searching the web, I'd guess this has something to do with
the frequency of typical sound to be reproduced is
nowhere near the resonant frequency of a brain inside the skull.
Not to mention the minimal amplitude.
\_ So this SoundBug thing... does it actually use less power and sound
better than a portable speaker the same size?

6/12 Has anyone heard of Mangajin magazine? It was around from 1991
to 1997-ish, and had Japanese manga with detailed translations,
plus various articles on Japanese culture. I'm looking for old
issues (they occasionally pop up on ebay) and wondered if any
sodan had some they'd be willing to part with. -bz
\_ I've read it, but I only ever bought one issue, and I'm
pretty sure it's been thrown out by now. Sorry. -jrleek

5/20 Japanese Balloon bombs against the US
http://www.axishistory.com/index.php?id=932
\_ So? Decades-old news?
\_ It's called history.
\_ So? You don't see people posting articles about
the Civil War to the motd.
\_ If you think that's interesting, look up the sub-launched air
raids against the West Coast. -John
\_ How many American civilians did the Japs kill? Not that many
compared to what we did to them. Now let me ask you, what about
your people, John? The Swiss kept Nazi money safe for Nazi
members many who fled to safe havens in South America. The
Swiss people are mercenaries. You just need to give them lots
of money and they'll do whatever it is you want them to do,
without any consideration to moral values. Heil Nazi Loving
Shameless Swiss John, and fuck the Swiss.
\_ The Swiss are the descendants of the Templars, who brought
them the modern banking system.
\_ This kind of stupidity makes me wonder why I bother with
the motd anymore.
\_ I was starting to worry about my troll farm since I
stopped baiting chicom troll and heil cherman john guy.
I'm glad at least their legacy lives on. -John
\_ Is it really so hard to avoid using racial slurs?
Is "Japanese" that hard to type? Thanks.
\_ It's amusing how this troll seems to be guilty of many
of the attitudes that he ascribes to John.

1/26 Why the heck is a Japanese Geisha played by Chinese women?
It's obvious she doesn't look Japanese. What are the whities
insinuating, that all Asians look alike? Fucking racist whities.
-pissed off Asian Man
\_ http://www.alllooksame.com
\_ todd solondz recently had a movie with a white girl played
by a black girl. its called drama. you find an actor to play
the part.
\_ Yeah. All asian characters should be played by Puerto Ricans
and Russians, like in the King and I.
\_ Ob. Jonathan Pryce and Miss Saigon.
\_ Assuming you are not a troll, this is more about business
than race. There simply are no big name stars from Japan
who could have carried such a major movie. BTW, where is
it written that a chinese person can't play a japanese
role and visa versa? This is not quite the same stretch
as, say picking Brad Pit over Denzel Washington for the
part of Thurgood Marshall.
\_ What annoyed me more were the liberties taken with the depiction
of geisha, liberties that are inexcuseable for a movie that
is supposed to be founded in some approximation of historical
accuracy. For as much as they spent on the movie, you'd think
they could get the geisha part right, since it is a movie about
a geisha's life. I could have dealt with the horrible accents,
the "doesn't look like a typical Japanese woman", and the bits
<<<<<<< Other Changes Below
related to using non-Japanese actors to portray Japanese. After
all, who here can tell the difference between Cockney, London,
and Received British accents and if they're done right by
non-British actors? There is no intrinsic reason why the Chinese
\_ <raising my hand sheepishly> --scotsman
\_ Well, you're special. I bet most don't even know that there
is a difference. --Jon
actors in the film (or actresses if you prefer) could not have
filled the roles, but again, for a budget of 85 million, you'd
think they could have gotten the accents right.
think they could have gotten the accents right. --Jon
\_ Well, how about a Chinese Macbeth? And if that's ok, how
about a white one?
\_ I don't see anything wrong w/ a Chinese MacBeth or
Hamlet. Certainly some of the realism is lost w/
a non-Scottish or Danish star, but the whole point
of theater is wilful suspension of disbelief.
\_ How about a white Macbeth then?
\_ MacBeth was white (Scottish) correct? That is
perfectly acceptable as well.
\_ How about a white Othello?
\- you know OLIVER was the STANDARD OTHELLO.
DWASHINGTON has been in lots of Shakespeare.
\_ Olivier was--what--40 years ago. I know
DWashington can be a hmmm Don Pedro.
Can CYFat be hired to play an Othello
today (not some Asian adaptation, but the
Moor himself)? Can MGibson? I wonder
if Sir Lawrence would have been allowed to
play Othello today.
\- DWASHINGTON has been in more
Shakespeare than ADONOTHING.
\_ I think that CYFAT could play Othello,
but I doubt that MGIBSON could. It is
one of those roles that, in modern
times, as become associated w/ a non-
white actor even though when it was
original performed a white actor would
have played Othello. We also forget
that original Desdemona would have
been played by a young boy, which is
unimaginable today, except perhaps in
very limited local circumstances.
\_ I had a friend who was white who used to use
one of Othello's speeches for auditions. He
would never be cast in the role, but he could
play the shit out of the soliloquies. --scotsman
\_ This is akin to the example re Justice Marshall
that I gave above. Some roles are so linked to
a particular "race" that it is difficult for
others to play that part. Re Othello, iirc
he was a "moor" not "black", therefore it is
conceivable that someone like BKINGLSEY could
play him.
\_ Othello was indeed Moorish, and not all Moors
have dark skin. However, Iago refers to him
as "black Othello" (II.iii); and Othello says
himself, "Haply, for I am black" (III.iii).
There is quite some debate over what this
means, along with the many other "black"
references throughout the play. During the
Renaissance, unlike now, being "black" meant
that any of your features (such as hair or
eyes) were dark, not just skin.
-- dlong (!= pp)
\_ Do you think there are black Hamlets? Do
you think there are white Othellos? Today?
\_ Do you think there aren't?
\_ I have not recently seen a black Hamlet,
but I don't really have a problem w/ a
Black or Asian Hamlet as long as the
character is well played. I think that
the "race" of the actor has to match
the "race" of the character in very few
cases (ex. a white guy could never
portray Ben Sisko, just like a black
guy couldn't portray Robert E. Lee)
\_ Well, how about the white Othello? Do
you think one could be casted today?
\_ In a major motion picture, a white
Othello probably would not work,
unless they made Desedmona and Iago
black or asian or something, in
order to keep the tension up.
I think that in a theater produc-
tion a white Othello could work.
\_ Patrick Stewart played Othello
a few years back in a mostly Af-Am
cast.
\_ Really? Must have missed it.
Is it any good (ie worth
Netflixing?)
\_ It was a stage production.
Don't know if there's a film
release.
\_ Michael Clarke Duncan played the Kingpin in Daredevil. Sure
he's a big black man instead of a big white guy, but he did
fill the role and kept true to the comic book character. If
you can fill the role, great. If not, you (or your director
or producer/etc) are not doing a good job. It says something
when I feel Tom Cruise's Meiji era movie did a better job
depicting Japanese life than this one. --Jon
\_ Japanese TV and movie used to dominate East Asia with big stars
like Yamaguchi Momoe and Tanaka Yuuko. Don't know what caused
the decline.
=======
related to using non-Japanese actors to portray Japanese if they
had only gotten done an otherwise accurate depiction of a geisha's
life. After all, who here can tell the difference between
Cockney, London, and Received British accents and if they're
done right by non-British actors? There is no intrinsic reason
why the Chinese actors in the film (or actresses if you prefer)
could not have filled the roles, but again, for a budget of 85
million, you'd think they could have gotten the accents right.
\_ Well, how about a Chinese Macbeth? And if that's ok, how
about a white one? \_ I don't see anything wrong w/ a Chinese
MacBeth or
Hamlet. Certainly some of the realism is lost w/ a
non-Scottish or Danish star, but the whole point of theater
is wilful suspension of disbelief. \_ How about a white
Macbeth then?
\_ MacBeth was white (Scottish) correct? That is
perfectly acceptable as well. \_ How about a white
Othello?
\_ Japanese TV and movie used to dominate Asia with big stars
like
Yamaguchi Momoe and Tanaka Yuko. Don't know what caused the
decline.
>>>>>>> Your Changes Above
\_ Anime. Seriously.
\_ What annoyed me more were the liberties taken with the depiction
of geisha, liberties that are inexcuseable for a movie that
is supposed to be founded in some approximation of historical
accuracy. For as much as they spent on the movie, you'd think
they could get the geisha part right, since it is a movie about
a geisha's life. I could have dealt with the horrible accents,
the "doesn't look like a typical Japanese woman", and the bits
related to using non-Japanese actors to portray Japanese. After
all, who here can tell the difference between Cockney, London,
and Received British accents and if they're done right by
non-British actors? There is no intrinsic reason why the Chinese
\_ <raising my hand sheepishly> --scotsman
\_ Well, you're special. I bet most don't even know that there
is a difference. --Jon
actors in the film (or actresses if you prefer) could not have
filled the roles, but again, for a budget of 85 million, you'd
think they could have gotten the accents right. --Jon
\_ Arthur Golden had never visited Japan before writing the book.
If you're looking to it as an authoritative depiction of what
Japanese culture or Geishas are like, I suggest googling for
"Karl May". -John
\_ Mineko Iwasaki
\_ Touche. Nonetheless, random gaijin, a couple of interview
sessions with a representative of a centuries-old culture
and tradition = good basis for authoritative portrayal?
Hint: No. -John
\_ Examples, Jon? (of stuff they got wrong)
\_ Actually I read about the accents, and the director supposedly
wanted all of the major actresses to sound the same and the
only way to do that was to get them to speak in the same bad
accent.
\_ My friend wrote a book on Geisha which I found much more
accurate and well-researched than the silly and sensational
book this movie was based on:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1856486974

1/11 http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060111/od_nm/naked_dc
Japanese people are weird, just weird.
\_ Japanese people do a lot of weird things, yes. Liking to look at
naked chicks isn't one of them. I tend to think that a country
that considers it to be a national crisis when a boob gets shown
on TV during a sporting event is far weirder.
\_ Kancho. 'nuff said.
\_ But the Canadians who started it aren't?
\_ Looking at the same people stripping every day for several years
isn't that interesting.
\_ agree... used to look at these same people for news every day.
\_ The Russians were doing strip tease news casts 15+ years ago.
\_ "While we have been in Tokyo, people have been very surprised to
see us with no tops on, but they're very happy and interested in
talking to us." She should come to Soda and see how happy and
interested students are in talking to her.
\_ one big difference is that soda students have no money.
no money no honey.

12/22 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4552010.stm
The Japanese are saying "we're fucked because our population is
decrease, let's create more babies." Question. Are there
examples of countries that thrive economically AND still
have a shrinking population? Must a country gain population
before thriving economically?
\_ Can you ask questions without using racial slurs?
\_ Nipper is a term for a young japanese person.
\_ A derogatory term, maybe. It's not even the term the OP
used.
\_ I don't see why not. It's just that one component of growth
becomes negative. Japan is doing ok these days.
\_ I don't know... but if the economy shrink by 1% and the population
drop by 3%, it would be a net economy expansion, no?
\_ So if we killed off 90% of the population but only lost 80%
productivity, this would be a net economy expansion, yes? You
got into Berkeley?
\_ (s)he got into soda

11/7 The Three Kingdoms comic. Stupid in-jokes about the Romance of
the Three Kingdoms. In English, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, and,
what is that, Cambodian?
http://www.shiji.cc/san/index.php?mode=main
\_Close to Khmer...it's Thai. -scottyg

9/30 Anyone here from Japan? How did Japan manage to have such low birth
rates while contraceptive pills were not approved until recently? Are
Japanese condoms a lot more effective, or are there a lot more
abortion, or is it really true that people have a lot less sex because
men work long hours?
\_ it is more acceptable in Japan to have an abortion than
to use any sort of birth control.
\_ The last one doesn't seem relevant, at least for married people.
You only have to have sex once a year to have a ridiculously high
birthrate.
\_ Um, no.
\_ Yes.
\_ One word: bukake
\_ http://csua.org/u/dkn
\_ This while having the world's highest chlamydia infection rate.
\_ Why does it hurt when I pee?
Why does it hurt when I pee?
I don't want no doctor
To stick no needle in me
Why does it hurt when I pee?
I got it from the toilet seat
I got it from the toilet seat
It jumped right up
'n' grabbed my meat
Got it from the toilet seat
My balls feel like a pair of maracas
My balls feel like a pair of maracas
Oh God I probably got the
Gon-o-ka-ka-khackus!
My balls feel like a pair of maracas
Ai-ee-ai-ee-ahhhh!
Why does it
Why does it
Why does it
Why does it hurt...when I
Peeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee?
\_ Japan is way down the chart for the amount of sex they have.
\_ Sex education not based on abstinence, higher rates of male
sterility, much more emphasis on condoms. Also, yes, legalized
abortion (although this is still somewhat stygmatized); see
http://csua.org/u/dko (Stanford article on abortion in Japan 1996).
\_ An astounding number of abortions.
\_ Mostly it's women deciding not to have kids and not get married.
Given the perceived and actual lives of married Japanese women,
it's understandable.
\_ What's the difference between the perceived and the actual?
\_ The most sex crazed asian country in terms of amount of sex
people have is my fatherland Taiwan.

9/28 Japanese scientists take first photos of a giant squid:
http://tinyurl.com/bvbur (reuters.com)
\_ So two days ago.
\_ cool. I bet Japanese just want to eat them.
\_ I bet this breakthrough will usher a whole new era in the tentacle
porn genre.
\_ Tentacle porn genre??
\_ For the love of god, somebody get this boy some hentai
\_ Or stranger sex accidents than ever before:
http://www.cdnn.info/news/eco/e050925.html

9/17 "A Japanese woman called in the police after a hitman she paid to
kill her lover's wife failed to carry out the job."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050916/od_nm/japan_hitman_dc
\_ Wow. "Move over Germany!"
\_ What the hell does this have anything to do with Germany?
\_ Someone was claiming the Germans had the lock on odd, bizarrely
stupid behavior.
\_ They're both defeated nations and breed insecurity within.
For example Siegfried and Roy were born from former Nazis
and after the defeat they became depressed drunkard, and
raised up psychologically fucked up gay/lesbian/shit eating
German children. Ditto with the Japanese.
\_ Wow, you think fucked up shit comes from only these two
nations, huh?
http://www.bpninc.com/evideo/video_mac_hi.mov
\_ Wow BRILLIANT where/how did you find these links?
\_ In the same vein: http://csua.org/u/df2

8/30 "... the parliament designated the World War II hymn 'Kimigayo' as the
national anthem in 1999 ... same one sung as the Imperial Army set
forth from Japan ... strongly backed by Shintaro Ishihara, the governor
of Tokyo and an outspoken nationalist, as a way to strengthen classroom
patriotism.
... The school board's mandatory rule has had a visible effect. At
graduation ceremonies in 2004, 198 teachers refused to stand. After a
series of fines and disciplinary actions, Nezu and nine other teachers
were the only protesters this year."
http://csua.org/u/d71 (Wash Post)

8/18 Japan travel agency to offer trips to space:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050818/sc_nm/space_japan_tourism_dc
It says "...... zero gravity tour, which will take participants to an
altitude of 100 km for a relatively inexpensive 11 million yen."
Does anyone remember at what altitude it is considered "space"? 11M
yen (~$100k) seems awfully cheap for that.
\_ 100km is the generally agreed upon lower boundary of space. A brief
suborbital flight seems doable for 11MY. Remember that the German
V2 rockets lifted 1000kg into space back in the 1940's.

7/29 To the Japanese imperialist/asian nationalist troll (I'm so proud that
my troll farm finally has a little friend for chicom troll, I was
getting worried): They lost. -John
\_ yeah and you thick skinned white men still don't get why you're
bombed and attacked and hated and jihad'ed and so on so forth.
\_ Here, let me take a stab at this: US is (for the time being at
least) the top dog in the geopolitical dog pile, and also
supports Israel. If you think it has anything to do with 'lack
of sensitivity' then I have to wonder what deluded idyllic
closet *you* came out of. Grow up, son -- the world doesn't
revolve around your hurt feelings.
\_ Ah, ok, now we're getting somewhere, I wasn't sure what your
point was, exactly. So you are equating a racist, imperialistic
regime's expansionist policies based on perceived American
aggression with the justified indiscriminate violence perpetrated
against civilians by a few ideologically exploited thugs who
are just as wont to murder their own "people" and oppress
infidels and women as a response to repeated supposed slights
committed against a primitive, barbaric "culture" that has never
undergone a renaissance, never ever consider a tiny measure of
introspection about why it is economically and socially failing?
You know, I'm the first to try and look for and analyze faults
in my own society's internal and international workings-as I've
stated before, maybe this makes me a bit naive. You, on the
other hand, are a cranky, ill-educated cretin. Oh, and I'll make
sure to inform Condi about the "white men" thing. I'm sure it
sounded good on a flyer on Sproul plaza. -John

6/27 God, I really envy the Japs. Why don't we have something like this?
http://www.cnn.com/2005/TRAVEL/06/27/bt.japan.bullet.train.ap
\_ Japan has a much higher population density?
\_ You can't compare Japan to the US; you should compare to
California, or the eastern seaboard. Obviously you can't
support bullet rail in Wyoming, but California has plenty of
population density and travel to do so. -tom
\_ Japan also doesn't have the kinds of politics the US does.
http://tinyurl.com/7myk2 -- I recall midwesthsr being
throttled by every 2-bit politician wanting a stop in his
town in return for voting for it, sort of like the Washington
airport expressway. By the way, the pic on that tinyurl link
is of a Zurich commuter train--very un-high speed. -John
\_ Japan is not at all comparable to California. Try flying
above the CA coast and looking down vs. the same in Japan.
Japan is smaller than CA and 3.5x the population.
\_ Hmmm, I wonder how a bullet train from SF to LA would do?
\_ There is a proposal for it, which of course the airlines
are fighting tooth and nail. They killed a similar
project in Texas. I think a high-speed rail connection
between SF and LA, with downtown embarcation, would
be heavily used. -tom
\_ As someone who hates airports and flying with a passion,
I think this country could use more high speed rail.
-- ilyas
\_ Who do you expect to pay for the infrastructure to
build this high speed rail, oh libertarian?
\_ Charitable donations from Republicans, of course.
Big corporations rip off average consumers so
that they can make big donations to the poor.
All heil Waltons, Bushs, and Gates -Libertarian
\_ "The train is expected to make the 360 mile trip between
Tokyo and Aomori --about the distance between San Fran-
cisco and Los Angeles -- within three hours ..."
\_ Population density:
San Francisco: 16,632 per sq. mi.
Los Angeles: 7,990 per sq. mi.
Tokyo: 33,617 per sq. mi.
\_ California is not as populus as Japan, but it is as
populus as many places which have extensive rail networks.
-tom
\_ Whatever. My numbers were for cities. Also, high-speed
rail needs local city transportation as well, else no
one will ride if they can't get the last 1-5 miles.
\_ Yeah, that is why no one is willing to fly
\_ Yeah, that is why no one is willing to fly in
airplanes. They can't get out of the airport.
\_ I remember an article in the SFCron a few
years ago that driving to LA from SF was
superior to flying. It took less time, and
you had a car when you got there.
\_ Grammatical question for you. How do you know when to say
"Japan has much higher population" and "Japan has A much higher
population"? Ditto with "the" and others.
\_ Yermom has rabies.
Yermom has a cold.
Yermom has the mumps.
There are general rules, but sometimes you just have to
remember.
\_ I seem to remember that when I was a kid people used to
say "the Ukraine", but now the "the" has disappeared.
What's that about? Any Ukrainians want to comment?
\_ I think the difference is that now Ukraine is a
country, rather than an area of Russia. On the
other hand, I still say, "the Ukraine." Maybe it
should be Ukrania?
\_ Plural vs. singular. In this case "Japan has higher
population density" would be incorrect; "population density"
is singular and requires the "a". Population is also properly
singular. Unless it's the verb form.
\_ Yes, let's envy those whom we deride with racial slurs!
\_ I remember an article in the SFCron a few
years ago that driving to LA from SF was
superior to flying. It took less time, and
you had a car when you got there.
\- i am surprised SF-LA train proposals have
found any "traction" at all [that really
was unintentional]. i am not sure what
problem it solves. it seems to me the only
people it is good for is people near the LA
terminus wo want to come to downtown SF for
a few days. how much would a SF<->LA fast
train ticket cost ... actual cost [without
weird cross subsidies] and what would the
out of pocket ticket price?
\_ The problem it solves is that flying is
a pain in the ass. Taking the train is
fun. -tom
\- do you actually think that is a
serious answer? a fun choo-choo
train != multi-billion dollar rail
project. is a fast train more fun
than the Coast Starlight? you might
take a trian for fun, but that isnt
why you build one.
\_ Actually, yeah. I've both
flown from Seoul to Pusan (Korea), and taken the new
bullet train. The train is superior. It's more
comfortable (wieght is not such an issue), runs more
often, and you don't have to hang around the station for
an hour and a half before hand. Of course, that doesn't
mean it will be so nice here, but.. -jrleek
\_ Yes, let's envy those whom we deride with racial slurs! Is it
so hard to type out "Japanese"?

6/24 pictures of paintings by Korean school children about
how much they are displeased with Japan.
http://uqmgp.hp.infoseek.co.jp - danh
\_ "the government ordered the public schools to tell the students the
Korean view without actually backing it up." Doesn't this sound
like how communist governments control the views of their youths?
\_ I don't know, Japan seems to be doing the same thing with
this issue, and others.
\_ They're either incredibly sheltered or incredibly stupid
about the whole WWII thing. Those new textbooks don't really
help, nor does half of E. Asia flogging a dead horse. -John
\_ Recently, Japan start to expand its territorial water,
which pissed off both Korea and China. There were
navy vessle stand off between Korean and Japan about
a month ago. China, by comparison, official reaction
has been much restrained. Having said that, if Japan
continue its current path, it will repeat its imperial
ambition... and this time, USA will support it.
\_ Hahahaha.
\_ All these while the Japanese start to love Korea because of its
heart-touching TV dramas in recent years.

6/1 Question on home ownership. Let's say you buy flood, fire,
earthquake, and land-slide insurance. Then a foreign unidentified
object enters the atmosphere and creates a big crater in your home
making it worthless. Are you covered by anyone, like the government?
Secondly, suppose you decide not to get one of the insurance, since
it costs too much to buy everything, and that particular disaster
strikes making your land totally worthless. Are you covered? Or are
you completely screwed? How about the case where they suddenly
find carcinogeous, radio-active material in your backyard? Who/what
covers these things?
\_ Are you in a swing state in an election year? If so, notify the
federal government at once, and they will buy you a new house, and
give you a gold-plated flying saucer for your trouble.
\_ I seem to recall a Warner Bros cartoon about just this sort of
thing. The policy fine print didn't cover, for instance, injury
from guided missiles. -- ulysses
\_ Do they still broadcast American cartoons, or is it pretty much
Japanized? Last time I watched cartoon a year ago it was mostly
Japanese anime. I'm not sure if I learned anything useful
from Pokemon and Digimon. PIKA! PIKA! PIKACHU!
\_ I learned that it's better for pokemon to be friends, and that
Team Rocket blasted off again.
\_ If you ever get into a situation involving strange temporal
rifts (ala Donnie Darko) then you're covered.
\_ #1 and #2: your insurance company won't pay you, but you may be able
to get some kind of disaster aid. #3: your insurance company won't
pay you, but you can probably sue the govt. or some company to get
compensated.
\_ You can sue God and get compensated in your next life.
\_ Ebay the "foreign object". Substances from "foreign objects"
that enter the atmosphere are in pretty high demand from shadowy
groups seeking to create nefarious objects of evil from them. Such
as Happy Fun Ball. Warning: do not taunt Happy Fun Ball. -John

5/10 Today's title page engrish is pretty good:
http://www.engrish.com
\_ Six years of living in Japan, and I'm still astounded at how
clueless Japanese people are about inherent racism. --erikred
\_ "What do you mean? There's no racism in Korea!" --most
Koreans. (jrleek)
\_ There was a brand of toothpaste in Asia called Blackman or
Blackie toothpaste that had a picture of a black dude on it
with a big white smile.
\_ I used to use it exclusively when I was a kid in Hong Kong.
The brand name used to be Darkie and the Chinese name was, and
still is, "Black People's Toothpaste". Then Colgate bought
the brand and renamed it Darlie and changed the logo. The
idea was that most Hong Kong people had an impression that
black people's teeth look very white (probably because of the
contrast to the skin color), so if you want your teeth to look
like black people's, you'd better use Black People's
Toothpaste. It was very popular because of the brandname.
You need to understand that it was not racism against
Africans. I'd think of it as "positive racism", if there's
such a thing.
\_ No we don't need to understand that. To say that ignorance
of this sort is not grounded in racism is to misunderstand
racism.
\_ Okay, at least please don't think that this is racism
*against* Africans in this case.
\_ Okay, raised with a cultural icon like that, what
is the immediate gut response when meeting a black
man for the first time? It's as racist as the
portrayal of Chinese in Hollywood for decades.
\_ I checked out his teeth. Yeah, it's funny.
\_ See, racism is about disrespect of a person or
people because they don't look like the people
around you. It doesn't have to be "negative"
to be hurtful. If it puts up a wall or causes
objectification when you interact with someone,
it's something to fight against.
\_ BTW, some other common impression in HK on black people
are "black people are better at jazz, rap and other
rhythm-centric music forms" and "black people are better
at sports that need either explosive power and very
short endurance (100m), or very long endurance
(marathon)". On the other hand, the common impression
among Americans that "black people have big penes"
wasn't widespread in HK.
among Americans that "black men have big penes" wasn't
widespread in HK.
\_ OTOH, the sterotype of black men having larger
genitalia is alive and well in Japan. --erikred
\_ If it's any comfort, there's also a brand of toothpaste in Taiwan
called Whiteman. I have a tube of it.
\_ Is that condom?
\_ yes

4/28 "In FY04 the U. S. Government spent $322 Billion of your money on
interest payments* to the holders of the National Debt. Compare that
to NASA at $15 Billion, Education at $61 Billion, and Department of
Transportation at $56 Billion."
So who are the "holders of the National Debt."? Bankers?
http://www.federalbudget.com
\_ Central banks of other countries (Japan, China, ...)?
\_ What is the interest rate? I mean, it sounds to me like it's
worth investing your money at banks that lend to U.S.
\_ Mo' money, mo' money, mo' money!
\_ Not very high interest. I think new T-bills are around 4.3%.
\_ one of the lowest you can get. but sure it is a lot safer
to finance the US govt. as opposed that of some other country
like Argentina..
\_ And how much more was borrowed, leading to larger interest payments
the next year? Isn't borrowing to pay for your interest a sign
that you're on the verge of bankruptcy?
\_ no.
\_ Heh, the US should declare bankruptcy and be absolved of all debt.
\_ Read "Interface" by Neal Stephenson
\_ Well by a pen name. And that book really feels like it is missing
about 100 pages in the middle.

4/22 I haven't read much on the news, what do the Koreans think about
the current situation between China and Japan?
\_ Aren't they mad about that book that got approved that took out
references to comfort women?
\_ The Koreans are pretty mad about the books as well, but they
haven't attacked anything Japanese over it. (2 people cut off
fingers and one guy lit himself on fire) The protests over
comfort women in front of the Japanese embassy are practically
standard by now. The Koreans are also mad because one of the
new text books claims Dokdo, a tiny pair of Korean held
islands, is illegally occupied by the Koreans. -jrleek
\_ Wow, there's still arguments over that island? I remember
learning about it when I was a kid. Koreans actually have a song
that proclaims how Dokdo belongs to Korea.
\_ Yeah. My wife can sing that song. "Dokdo-nun oori ddang!"
I reserve judgement a bit, because I've never heard the
Japanese side of the story, but my understanding is that
the only time the Japanese ever controlled the island was
1905-1945. Since Korea was occupied by Japan in 1906, I
don't really think that counts. -jrleek
\_ This is pretty correct, but those who cut off their fingers did
so because of Dokdo, not because of the history books. Also,
I think there's generally a lot more anger in China and Korea
than over just the issue of sex slavery; there were a whole slew
of war atrocities commited by imperialist Japan--sex slavery
simply appears to be either the only one well vocalized or the
only one covered by the media.
\_ You're right, although I kinda see those as related since
a lot of the Dokdo hubbub is over the textbooks, but
there's also "Takeshima Day" which pissed off a lot of
Koreans. As for the comfort women, I think they get
covered the most because some of them are still alive
(80, I think) and actively protesting. Most war
atrocities result in dead people. Dead people are very
poor at active protesting. -jrleek
\_ My personal opinion is that the best way to resolve the
situation would be for Japan to revise it's text books, and for
China to pay for the repairs to the Japanese embassy. I don't
really think Japan has to continue to atone for it's past sins,
but it shouldn't try to deny them either. However, by allowing
it's citizens to riot and damage the Japanese embassy, China
was in direct violation of it's signed treaties. -jrleek
\_ The problem is that 1) The "honor" thing is very important in
Japanese culture than in mordern Chinese and western cultures
\_ The problem is that 1) The "honor" thing is more important in
\_ FYI it's "its" not "it's" in the context you're using it.
\_ The problems are that 1) The "honor" thing is more important in
Japanese culture than in mordern Chinese and western culture
(don't know about Korean), 2) The monarchy is a continuation of
the one in the past. So it's very hard to make Japan admin they
were evil.
\_ 3) Is Chinese your first language?
\_ Yes. Your point?
\_ Perhaps your opinion might be biased? In any case,
you stereotype of the Japanese is unfortunate.
\_ But in this situation probably pretty accurate, at
least relating to this situation. Putting aside
the whole Yasukuni thing (as there's at least _some_
point to it), what other reasons could you think
of for Japanese schools not wanting to adopt a text-
book which owns up to prettty hideous war crimes?
(and don't start with "the-US-did-this, the-other-
colonial-powers-did-that, there's (a) an order of
magnitude of difference, and (b) most western
countries have or are coming around to admitting
having caused some bad shit. I'm not saying the
Chinese approach is anything less than reprehensibly
opportunistic, but there's sure a lot of potential
for Japan to take the moral high ground. -John
\_ So how do the Germans deal with their history
textbook issues? How is WWII presented in
German schools?
\_ "We really really fucked up and did lots of
bad shit and we have to make sure that it
never happens again". Although the situation
with them is a bit different, as the Japanese
committed widespread wanton brutality, not
really genocide per se. And yes there is a
lot of resistance to the constant guilt thing
in Germany. -John
\_ BTW, your English could still use a bit of work.
\_ When this thing is eventually settled, China WILL pay
for the damage to Japanese properties. Whether Japan
will alter the text book or not, it remains to be see
(highly unlikely).
\_ nah, I doubt China will pay a cent.
\_ what are you willing to bet? -chiry
\_ Didn't the Chinese govt pay for the damaged US embassy?
Of course, that doesn't compare to the laser guided
bomb that landed on the Chinese embassy.
\_ They need to pay for that bomb.
\_ yea, but US is scary country. PRC always try
to avoid conflict with US. Also, US didn't
murder millions of Chinese civilians, or use
them for medical experiments.
\_ No, the PRC has done enough of this themselves.
Also, see recent stories on Uighurs.
\_ Ask people in PRC, and they will say GLP
and GPCR sucked. They will also say the
last quarter century of economic reform
and prosperity was good. What's your
point?
\_ That the PRC is manipulating medium-grade
anger over a text-book written by Right
Wingers in a foreign country to push for
greater bargaining power over oil fields in
ambiguously owned waters while continuing to
stifle any criticism of the PRC's own
atrocities, some of which are ongoing.
Physician, heal thyself.
\_ err ... I think everyone knows that
already.
\_ on a related note, 100 youngsters (in their 20s) came to the
street of tokyo protesting against the textbook. (from hk
newspaper)
\_ Native students or Chinese?
\_ natives plus foreigners from around the earth.

4/14 Japan is pulling a fast one in China Sea, just before meeting of
foreign ministers.
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20050414a1.htm
Japanese government approves drilling in contested water; "the Defense
Agency and the Japan Coast Guard" will "ensure the safety of the
Japanese firms involved." (remarks at the very end).
\_ You can't keep backing down forever. The only way to deal with a
bully is to confront them at some point.
\_ I agree 100%. Who's the biggest bully in the world?
\_ That's what Germans said beforing invading CZ and Poland.
\_ So long as you are consistent in the behavior you accept
from the parties. If you accept Chinese consternation when
it's thwarted, then you accept US (or whatever other nation)
consternation when it is thwarted also. If you accept the
Chinese military moving in to occupy the questionable areas,
then you accept someone else's invasion also.
\_ The url syas Japanese military is going to patrol the
contested water, as they have already done there and
over some islet in dispute, not the other way around.
Your "China Bad" reflex is hurting basic reading
comprehension. Sad.
\_ That's what Germans said beforing invading CZ and Poland. Some
just has a habit of calling the victim bully and the bully victim
\_ Yep. The Chinese started to tap into a pool of resource
that crosses into contested territory.
\_ You are confused which side your argument supports.
\_ it all depends on your perspective.
\_ Only if you are already fixated.
\_ Why is Japan pulling a fast one? China started test drilling
first and would not make its plans known to Japan.
\_ China drilled in a area where even Japan acknowldged to be in
Chinese domain, but now Japan will drill in a contested area.
A boundary between two countries is valid iff it is acknowledged
by both. China asked but Japan has refused to negotiate over the
dispute.
\_ Unfortunately, while the Chinese are drilling in uncontested
areas, they may be tapping into a pool of resource that
crosses over into the Japanese exclusive economic zone.
This makes the Chinese test drill a contested issue. While
the Japanese may have refused China's proposal to jointly
develop the area, the Chinese have also turned down the
Japanese proposal to evenly divide the sea between China and
Japan. Nor have the Japanese turned down the Chinese joint
development as such. The Japanese government has asked for
Chinese drill data before they would consider the proposal,
and China has refused to provide any information.
\_ Japan "claims" the reservior is connected to theirs.
\_ I don't think there's much doubt that this is japan's
claim. Perhaps you mean to put quotes around
"connected".
Saddam made the same claim about oil field in Kuwait as the
reason to invade it. If the air moleculres I breathe is
claimed to have passed Japan, do I have to bow to the
Emporor too? As for the border, Japan simply "declared" a
"middle" line between Okinwawa, which was brutally annnexed
and colonized by Japan ~15 years before it did the same to
Taiwan and ~25 years before it did to Korea, and some spot
on mainland China. It refused to discuss this with China.
\_ Saddam made the same claim about oil field in Kuwait
tapping into Iraq's as the reason to invade it. If the
air moleculres I breathe is claimed to have passed Japan,
do I have to bow to the Emporor too? As for the border,
Japan simply declared a "middle" line between Okinawa
and some spot on Chinese mainland. Okinawa was forcibly
annnexed and brutally colonized ("disposed" is the
officially sanctioned word) by Japan ~15 years before it
did the same to Taiwan and ~25 years before it did so to
Korea. It went free after WWII, but Japan reannexed it in
1972. Regardless whether that is legitimate, it is clear
Japan's rapidly expanding border is a grave concern for its
neighbors, but it continues on a roll to impose its will.
Will they next claim a land border between Korea and
Shanghai, or between Pearl Harbor and Boston?
\_ China proposed joint exploration and offered to negotiate
the border dispute. Japan simply unilaterally announed
where they want it to be. This is not how normal country
resolves difference with neighbors. You are admitting the
facts, but your use of 'proposal','turn down,' and 'refuse'
are clever spins. Isn't it odd to ask China to provide
very valuable data when Japan does not agree to form
a collaboration with it? Hey, give me the source code to
longhorn before I consider whether to buy it. No? You must
be evil!
\_ How can you negotiate over something when you don't
what you are negotiating over? Of course Japan has
to ask for survey data before it can consider the
Chinese joint exploration proposal.
\_ Wrong analogy. Source code = software. However,
Survey data != actual oil
\_duh, analogy is not meant to be precise. If you were
serious about the discussion, you'd have gotten the
point, but clearly you are not. Besides, Chinese
drilling is done in uncontested water. Japan's request
for data is just their way of saying "fuck you."

4/12 Should China or Japan apologize? Which side are you on and why?
http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/asiapcf/04/12/china.japan
\_ What's astounding to me is that the politics within Japan keep
the necessary reform of textbooks from happening. It IS appalling
that many Japanese people make it all the way through college
oblivious to why much of Asia hates them. It also continues to give
Beijing something it can use as a diplomatic lever when they want
something. It would be difficult for Beijing to take the moral high
ground if it didn't have this drum to beat. The fact we're hearing
about this now makes me suspect Beijing is trying to pull a fast
one in some other area. Check on the conflict over natural gas in
the China Sea lately? -- ulysses
\_ Japan's entry as a permanent member of the Security Council.
\_ So China is by default the bad one in any disputes? I once met
an American who thought opium war is about Chinese trying to sell
opium to Britain and getting punished, and so I am not surprised
to hear this on the motd. (No swiftboat troll please) Japan has
been pulling "fast ones" in China sea for years, but you never
hear it in the west. Korea used its navy to seize some islands
it (rightly) claims from Japan. Have you heard of that? China
has been relying on (empty) protests. No good deed goes
unpunished, I guess.
\_ It seems that Japan is pulling a fast one.
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20050414a1.htm
Japan government approves drilling in contested region;
Japan government approves drilling in contested water;
"the Defense Agency and the Japan Coast Guard" will "ensure
the safety of the Japanese firms involved."
\_ Here's an interesting perspective I had not seen anywhere else:
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/GD14Ad06.html
\_ Not mentioned elsewhere? You have to be kidding. I read it
everywhere. Every time anything happens with China, it must
have a hidden, devious and sinister motive, according to all
the western (and Japanese) news, from the NYT to freerepublic.
China builds a highway? It is trying to the supress freedom,
etc. One of my favorite was from The Economist. Right after
Musharraf's coup in Pakistan, Econ. condemns it. Then China
publicly (and mildly) expressed concern over the coup. Econ.
panicked and switched its stance, saying basically that since
China does not like it, the coup must be a good thing after all!
\_ The western media is extremely biased when it comes
to news about China. Whatever the news is, they can
always spin it in such a way that they can say
something bad about China. Everything you read about
China is negative. If you read enough of these news,
it's natural to form a negative opinion. They are not
lying (for the most part), they are just extremely
selective on the 'facts'.
\_ Apologize for what? It seems clear that Japan has yet to
acknowledge let alone apologize for the various atrocities
it committed throughout Asia in the 1930s-1940s (and earlier).
So yeah, Japan should apologize for that. What in particular
were you thinking China should apologize for? China has many
things for which to apologize, but for protests in front of
the .jp embassy? come on. --Jon
\_ According to that article "Japan's leaders have so far
apologized to China on no fewer than 17 occasions since the
two nations restored diplomatic ties in 1972, according to
The Economist Global Agenda."
I dunno, China *is* a scary country.
_/
Even ignoring the word play that comes in every
such so-called apology, can you consider it an apology when the
"apologizer" makes it clear before and after the apology that he did
not mean to apologize. If you can, you should find yourself "scary."
As for the article, it is quite typical and predictable of most
western journalist trying to insinuate that China does not have a
valid case in any contentious issue by selectively "reporting" "facts"
and quotes. There were larger, more intense protests in Korea started
earlier and continue to this day. They have an equally valid case for
their anger, but you wouldn't hear much of it on the western press,
and rarely if ever in a negative light. What Chinese and Koreans want
from Japanese is not some faked verbal apology, but a sincere and
serious acceptance of responsibility and the belief from their conscience
"War was wrong and I now want to be your good neighbor," instead of its
current "I was your master, then the Yankees nuked us. Ouch that
hurt, and now under the Yankees supervision I remain your master." If
anything, the Chinese government has been holding back popular
resentment on this issue, giving Japan time, decades of it, to act up.
What they got in return were slaps on the face, year after year. The
textbooks have been getting worse every (4?) years, the period of revision
and review by the Japanese government. They now state in the textbooks
that it is China's fault that it was attacked, invaded, and occupied,
it's Korea's fault to be in Japan's way to conquer China that it had
to be invaded, that if any Chinese civilians and POWs were killed by
Japanese (in Nanjing and elsewhere) it was all done within the normal
conduct of war, that the Tokyo war courts' finding of wartime atrocity
were unfounded, that Japan made great sacrifice during WWII with the
sole intention to save Asia from western imperialists, and so on. How is
this for an apologetic and reformed axis power? And all this is not the
work of a few conspirators that sneaked under the radar screen, but a
wide open, popular, aggressive and concerted campaign by leading
politicians to reassert Japanese economic, military, and political
domination over its neighbors, including but not limited to its
induction into security council, perhaps permanently, this year. Only a
small band of courageous but marginalized Japanese citizens have stood
up and condemned this.
Malformated verbal diarrhea _/
deleted.
\_ Even ignoring the word play that comes in every such
so-called apology, can you consider it an apology when the
"apologizer" makes it clear before and after the apology
that he did not mean to apologize. If you can, you should
find yourself "scary." As for the article, it is quite
typical and predictable of most western journalist trying
to insinuate that China does not have a valid case in any
contentious issue by selectively "reporting" "facts" and
quotes. There were larger, more intense protests in Korea
started earlier and continue to this day. They have an
equally valid case for their anger, but you wouldn't hear
much of it on the western press, and rarely if ever in a
negative light. What Chinese and Koreans want from
Japanese is not some faked verbal apology, but a sincere
and serious acceptance of responsibility and the belief
from their conscience "War was wrong and I now want to be
your good neighbor," instead of its current "I was your
master, then the Yankees nuked us. Ouch that hurt, and now
under the Yankees supervision I remain your master." If
anything, the Chinese government has been holding back
popular resentment on this issue, giving Japan time,
decades of it, to act up. What they got in return were
slaps on the face, year after year. The textbooks have
been getting worse every (4?) years, the period of
revision and review by the Japanese government. They now
state in the textbooks that it is China's fault that it was
attacked, invaded, and occupied, it's Korea's fault to be
in Japan's way to conquer China that it had to be invaded,
that if any Chinese civilians and POWs were killed by
Japanese (in Nanjing and elsewhere) it was all done within
the normal conduct of war, that the Tokyo war courts'
finding of wartime atrocity were unfounded, that Japan made
great sacrifice during WWII with the sole intention to save
Asia from western imperialists, and so on. How is this for
\_ Is this true? I find this shocking. links?
\_ The Japanese claim may have some validity depending
on what point in history one is talking about.
Japan's attitude was a changing mixture of "dang,
we are getting screwed by the western powers",
"we need to get strong and help asia defend itself",
"hey, we want our own part of the imperialism pie",
"uh oh, china is getting stronger, we better nip it
in the bud", "koreans and chinese are sub-humans,
we are superior and should kill them or rule over
them". The whole process goes back up till several
decades before WWII, includes the Russo-Japanese
War (1905), Sino-Japanese War (1894/5), etc.
Of course, the revisionists these days just focus
solely on the "We are just trying to
defending asia against western imperialism" part.
\_ If you read Chinese or Korean, it should be widely
available.
http://news.sina.com.cn/c/2005-03-25/02035456043s.shtmlhttp://news.sina.com.cn/c/2005-03-24/13325453393s.shtml
are two examples in Chinese. I suspect that it is not
that hard to find Japanese version either. The
Japanese groups behind the textbook rewriting are quite
proud of what they did and quite likely they are
bragging what changes they will put in the future. I
am sorry I cannot find any western journalists willing
to report on the textbooks. One has to look deep into
their soul to figure out why.
an apologetic and reformed axis power? And all this is not
the work of a few conspirators that sneaked under the radar
screen, but a wide open, popular, aggressive and concerted
campaign by leading politicians to reassert Japanese
economic, military, and political domination over its
neighbors, including but not limited to its induction into
security council, perhaps permanently, this year. Only a
small band of courageous but marginalized Japanese citizens
have stood up and condemned this.
- formatted for op
\_ Well said, thank you! -ray
\_ I imagine the problem is not so much that Japan hasn't
apologized but that Japanese text book publishers keep
putting out books that (in China's opinion) minimizes
Japanese atrocities during WWII. How much (central)
governmental control does Japan have over its textbooks?
\_ I understand the Education Ministry is very nationalist.
\_ "The acrimonious exchanges come after a week of rising
tensions over the Japanese Government's approval of a
controversial school textbook, which plays down the
extent of historical atrocities committed by Japan.
Among its other perceived flaws, the book, which was
written by a panel of nationalist educators, removed
all reference to 'comfort women' Asian women forced
into sexual slavery by the Japanese Imperial Army."
http://csua.org/u/bo2 (UK Times)
\_ "... apologized ... no fewer than 17 occasions ..."
apologized for what?
\_ "We're sorry you're all a bunch of pussies."
\_ "We're sorry we did the good ole in-and-out on your
country".
country" (seriously)
\_ It's not even "We're sorry about the in-and-out ...".
It's "We feel sorry about the in-and-out ...". In
other words, it was explicitly only an expression of
resentment, not an apology.
\_ Japan was stupid to accept the new revisions to the textbooks.
In an ideal world, Japan should back out to the old revisions and
send back the new ones for review.
\_ What about Germany? What do text book in Germany say about WWII?
\_ The holocaust was a JEWISH CONSPIRACY! It never happened!1!
\_ 'Germany continues to compensate victims even today, although
World War II ended 60 years ago, Mr. Roh observed.
"Germany also publishes history textbooks through
consultation with its neighbors," [South Korean President
President Roh Moo-hyun] said. He said that South Korea is
envious of Germany's neighbors for having such an opportunity.'
http://csua.org/u/bo1 (JoongAng Daily)
\_ U.S. textbooks are an interesting piece of fiction, too.
\_ I'm glad you learned from them to get your degree as well
\_ Imagine if Germany did what Japan has done. German president/pm
visits cemetary where Hitler and his generals were interred to
pay respects. Germany approves new history books whitewashing
the holocaust. -nivra

4/10 So, I'm hearing all this crap about social security becoming insolvent
because we won't have enough taxpayers to support the baby boomers.
What I haven't heard anything about is, why not allow more *skilled*
immigrants into the country? Why not allow people educated here to
stay in the country? We spend all this money on educating these
foreign nationals, and then make them leave, even if they'd like to
stay. Allowing them to stay would obviously make for more taxpayers,
more consumer demand, etc. And it's not really like we don't have
the land; Japan can cram well over half the population of the US into
a space smaller than California. The drawback is of course national
security "concerns", and the notion that foreigners will be competing
for our jobs. What do you people think?
\_ The US's prosperity was built largely on brain drain from
foreign countries with poorer conditions than here. Hindering
the brain drain in the name of national security is going to
bite us in the ass bigtime. Having poor schools in this country
is going to bite us in the ass bigtime too. It's a pity we
have to suffer through cowardly leaders who only care about
short term gain.
\_ Nice sentiment, but where did the obsession with ass-biting
get mixed into this?
\_ The US's ability to brain drain will probably be more
impacted by effective competition from foreign schools.
We'll probably still have the top schools, but the top 100
schools won't be 90% in the US.
\_ The U.S. taxpayer just finished spending a quarter of a million
dollars to pay for my Mainland Chinese friend's phd in solid state
physics. Due
to laws that almost redefine the phrase "government idiocy" she
may be unable to work in this country where we can benefit from
her education because all of "nanotechnology" has been declared
sensitive, and everyone in solid state physics wants to call their
work nanotech to get on the funding gravy train. Dumb dumb dumb.
I don't know the details of the ban, but it extends to the private
sector. "Sorry, you can't contribute to our economy. We're just
going to spend a quarter of a million dollars training you, then
force you to go back home and compete with us economically."
\_ you should consult a mental health professional
\_ Well, thanks for that ad hominem attack. BTW, I'm actually
born in the states, and this is not a troll. It is
practically a certainty at this point that our population will
not grow fast enough to support the boomers. It seems like the
obvious way to grow the population is to bring in other people,
very preferably ones who can contribute to our economy instead
of ending up on welfare.
\_ I have an idea that will help: ban abortion.
\_ See the welfare argument.
\_ It is my opinion that lots of skilled immigrants are already
ending up here. They are indeed taking jobs from Americans,
because they are willing to work for less. I fail to see how
this benefits the country. Do you really want to import doctors
from former Soviet Republics, like Spain is doing?
\_ Well, it is not clear if their presence here creates more jobs
than they take. Do dumb hicks contribute much to our economy?
In one sense, yes, since they fuel consumer demand by living
beyond their means. In another sense, no, because they're stupid
and don't increase our competitiveness. I'm not saying it should
be a free-for-all, or that foreign nationals should be allowed
in all fields, especially when we are not sure what their
education is relative to the standards in this country. But
especially for foreigners who got college or graduate degrees
in this country, not allowing them to stay seems rather silly.
After all, you can say that they deprived some US citizen of a
spot at whatever school they went to, so what's the big deal now?
\_ Is there evidence that lots of people who earned graduate
degrees here are not able to stay? Observationally, I
don't see that problem in the fields I am familiar with
(aerospace engineering, software engineering, hard
science, and entertainment).
\_ Yes. Please read my post about Chinese physicists in the
U.S. above. Admittedly, my evidence is also anecdotal, but
since most of the people I know are physics grad students,
and since about half of them are foreign, I think my
anecdotal evidence is relevant. What I see is unthinking
visa policy directly harming American science. It's not
that the *numbers* of foreign scientists wanting to be
in the U.S. will go down any time soon, it's that the
*quality* is going to start going down as the top people
pass up U.S. offers. -!pp
\_ Why does quality matter in terms of Social Security?
The reality is that there are more PhDs being graduated
than there are jobs to employ them.
\_ Fuck social security. The republicans are going
to destroy it anyway. I was just talking about
issues affecting American science in general.
\_ It might not per se, but the point is we would
probably rather have immigrants quality enough to
stay off welfare, and better yet, contribute to
innovation.
\_ It's difficult to stay these days. You need a H-1B to
work in the US, and these get used up in less than
a day everytime new quotas become available (in April
and October). From a company's standpoint, that's
a lot of uncertainty and cost for hiring a foreign
student graduate from US universities. The whole
PR process is also a huge pain and takes forever.
\_ It's difficult to hire foreign nationals. On the
other hand, plenty of them seem to be getting jobs.
Some of them marry Americans, but I have seen no
shortage of PhDs from India, China, and Europe working
here in the US. In fact, I see more than ever before.
Some real statistics and less anecdotal evidence would
be nice.
\_ It's not just difficult to hire, it's also a
pain to stay, so might as well go home,
especially given the opportunities abroad.
\_ There are no opportunities abroad. Maybe in
China. Definitely not in Europe, for
instance. I'd like to see some statistics.
\_ actually there are lots of opportunities
abroad. china, india, hongkong, singapore,
taiwan, korea, japan, ...
\_ Japan is okay, but are there really
that many opportunities for, say,
physicists in India or Singapore?
\_ I grow tired of seeing these posts about how we, as a US
economy keep getting hurt by offshore jobs, brain drain, etc.
All the posts seem very Nationalistic and people fail to take into
account the big picture, we are a global economy. That person
who leaves with a Physics degree eventually may invent
something in China that benefits someone in the US and
globally. You can always go micro and say "Contra Costa is losing
jobs to San Fran", but eventually we all benefit from knowledgeable
people no matter what tax bucket their income falls in.
\_ Are you the "Little Chinese"?

3/23 I don't get this. How can you go to jail by playing chess? CHESS???
Fine there's a stupid international saction but it's just a game.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4374811.stm
\_ didnt he burn his correspondence from the state dept. on tv
\_ "The American exile angered many of his fellow countrymen when he
went on Philippine radio on 11 September 2001, applauding the
attacks on the US on that day and launching into an anti-Semitic
diatribe."
\_ he was exiled many years BEFORE 9/11
\_ At the time, it was a fairly big deal. Now-a-days I would
expect them to be happy with just getting rid of the wack-job,
but I guess he probably injured some big-wigs pride. -jrleek
\_ He violated sanctions on Yugoslavia by going there and accepting a
prize for the competition. Chess wasn't illegal, so desist with the
red herring. -emarkp
\_ woooo... that's sooo scary. He went there to play a tourney...
wow. He's as evil as Martha Stewart.
\_ The investor who put up the purse intentionally chose
Yugoslavia as the venue to thumb his nose at the sancations.
Yugoslavia as the venue to thumb his nose at the sanctions.
You don't agree with sanctions? Fine. -emarkp
\_ I think it's not a question of whether we agree or not
with the sanctions. People should be free to go wherever
they please, maybe they even don't agree with the sanctions.
Why should the government stop them?
\_ Umm... look up sanction in the dictionary.

3/22 I am wondering, do other countries have kids shooting other kids
in school? What about England? Europe, Asia, Japan?
\_ no, in Asia they kill themselves (suicide)
\_ No guns in Japan, but knives
http://mdn.mainichi.co.jp/news/archive/200406/01/20040601p2a00m0dm004003c.htmlhttp://202.221.217.59/print/news/nn02-2005/nn20050216a2.htm
\_ I remember a story from about 7 years ago where some
Japanese High School Kid killed classmates with a katana.
\_ is this the "bamoidooki" and "sacred experimenter" case?
\_ and I bet freeper troll put it on the MOTD as a fallacious
refutation of the need for gun control. -tom
\_ curious tom, when you say gun control what do you have in
mind? what's your preffered gun control scheme?
mind? what's your preferred gun control scheme?
\_ I don't see any fundamental problems with the UK's
scheme. -tom
\_ There was the kid who cut off the head of a 10yo and put it
in front of his school. That guy, btw, never had his name
revealed bc he was a juvenile. Now that he's an adult, they
had to let him go. He's at large, in Japan, and his ID remains
unknown.
\_ Never heard of it in Hong Kong. Gun control over there is much
better. Gang members in bad schools stabbing each other are common,
but kids going postal and stabbing random classmates are very very
rare.
\_ Probably a lot harder to kill 10 people with a knife befoe being
stopped.
\_ They use knives and brickbats in the UK. Just as violent, the
little fuckers, and apparently far more prone to bullying. -John
\_ I've wondered if the Brits I've met are just bottom of the
barrel or if there is a predisposition to beatings/physical
violence w/ drinking. One thought was that it comes from a
lack of concern that the response to a punch might be a
.45 in the face.
\_ "God created man, but Sam Colt made them equal."
\_ Don't Japanese people use samurai swords to kill each other?

3/19 Primitive man-bot deputs in Japan, can walk 1 mile per hour. What is
it with the Japanese people and their obsession with robots (Honda's
Asimo, Robotech, and now this)?
http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000957036737
\_ Debuted a month ago. Beats the hell out of a Segway.
Cf. http://www.hitachi.co.jp/New/cnews/month/2005/03/0315.html
(Hitachi's EMIEW.)
\_ Cost-cutting. It's cheaper than Japanese people. -John
\_ It's necessary R&D before they can develop the tentacle-bot.
\_ First step towards miniaturization of people in a city of minature
manufacturing centers where tall people are excluded and cut up
for parts.
\_ Half the Japanese population will be too old to work soon. They
need robots since importing slaves is not permitted anymore.

1/31 I take it back, German socialism has my approval:
http://csua.org/u/ax9
\_ That's really sick. No one ought to be forced to sell his
or her body for other people's sexual jollies.
\_ Mmm. Emergent behavior.
\_ Ok this is really funny. An obvious fix to this insanity is to
add male prostitute as a "forced job" -- Those laws will get fixed
instantly. Kind of like how in Japan the government was dragging
their feet for 10+ years on the abortion pill (is it legal yet?)
but Viagra was instantly approved.
\_ The Japanese govt. was dragging its feet on _the pill_, not
Plan B. As in, omgwtf?
\_ Right, it's even worse than I remembered.

1/18 I want to see this: (Wierd Japanese Kiddie show)
http://www.filmthreat.com/Reviews.asp?Id=5064
\_ Are there non-weird Japanese kiddie shows?
\_ I'd actually be interested in Japanese TV in general
to assist in learning the language. Does anyone know
of regular Japanese language shows you can get in the US
through cable or satellite? -bz
\_ channel 26 ktsf(?) on the public airwaves has dramas

1/4 Updated govt. aid figures:
Australia: $765m
Germany: $680m
Japan: $500m
US: $350m
\_ Politicizing disaster relief is sickening.
\_ http://www.filibustercartoons.com/archive.php?id=20050105
\_ How much has been given privately? How much does it cost for our
carrier group and soldiers to be over there helping?
\_ ssshhhh!
\_ Sorry, didn't mean to feed the trolls.
\_ Yeah, but do the Indonesian people think that way?
\_ Who cares?

1/4 Ranking of govt. aids:
#1: Japan $500m
#2: Australia $450m
#3: US $350m
\- this really understates what the US is doing with it's
navy and such. also japan has a self-interest movtive
i would guess in getting aceh back on line. they get
some amount of natural gas and other resources from the
Aceh area directly.
\_ What are the Russians doing?
\_ they're busy doing insane things nationalizing
their gas/oil company and selling a chunk of it to china.
\_ agreed. Maybe they should do the sane and smart thing
like giving private enterprizes more power because
they run the industry more efficiently. In fact
they should just follow the Enron model-- ethics
aside, it was a very efficient and profitable model.
Produce less, make more. -conservative who totally
trusts private enterprizes
\_ [troll deleted]
\_ pretend the US only has one oil company. now
nationalized it. big undertaking!
\_ Welcome to the ownership society.
\_ Japan is trying to buy his way to a permanent seat in security
concil in United Nation. So, Japan's contribution is not really
an altrustic aid.

12/31 350 million, now that's more like it!!
\_ How much have China, Japan, and Korea donated?
\_ After the tsunami, China was the first foreigh country to send
money, goods, and rescue team to Thailand and probably others
as well. They pledged 2.62M US$ then added an extra 60.46M US$
yesterday. Incidentally, judging by GDP per capita, China is
poorer than two of the countries to which it is donating money.
Its rank is 123th (below average), quite a bit behind
Thailand (97), Malaysia (86). cf Korea (50), Japan (17), USA (3)
\_ Damn fucking US media, I find no mentioning of this.
Yeah, balanced and unbiased, my ass.
\_ So naive, little boy. Go back to drinking your kool-aid.
\_ *IF* USA has pledge to donate let say, $50 million within hours
of diseaster (instead of days), it would of made differences
in opinion poll. China's aid is minute compare with USA, Japan,
and Germany, but China was one of first nation which send out
aids to them.
\_ They didn't spend billions invading another country.
\_ hopefully they buy American first, gotta pump up our economy
\_ they already are. buying cigarrets :p

11/11 Author of Rape of Nanking committed suicide:
http://csua.org/u/9xx
\_ From the article: "Many soldiers went beyond rape to disembowel
women, slice off their breasts, nail them alive to walls. Fathers
were forced to rape their daughters and sons their mothers as other
family members watched."
\_ Where does that info come from I wonder?
\_ The article said she interviewed survivors in China.
\_ Considering the well-documented atrocities committed
by the biological warefare Unit 731, these things
are all very plausible.
\_ So here's what I don't undestand. How did Japan go
from this level of barbarism to being some of the most
peaceful people in the world in one generation?
\_ America.
\_ Perception of external threats from western
imperialist nations leading to desire to have
its own colonial empire leading to invasion
of korea, manchuria. Ideology of superiority
of Japanese and society turning militaristic
leading to despise and dehumanization of
other asian people. Whether Japan is peaceful
or not is still to be seen. It can only be
judged when the nation is under duress. US
did have a positive influence on Japan since
WWII.
\_ Is Japan denying what Unit 731 did too?
\_ I just searched for Unit 731 on google, and boy, I got
pretty angry. I guess what the US did to the Iraqi
prisoners seems like Child's play in comparison.
Now tell me, is Japan denying Unit 731?
\_ the right wingers certainly are denying it,
or the very least, not wanting to teach it
in school or discouraging people to write
about it.
\_ It's pretty horrid. Look for the William Kristol
interview with a veteran of that unit.
The guy's statements are stomach-turning. -John
\_ There were also interviews of Japanese soldiers
who witnessed or participated in the Rape of
Nanking. Some felt a lot of guilt, while others
tried to explain it.
\_ And how have they ruled out some pissed off Japanese right wing
nut killed her?
\_ why do you hate right wing Japanese people?
\_ It's that whole SoCal supermarket--samurai sword thing.
Read up on Yukio Mishima, you may be amused. -John
\_ The US govt is not interested in embarrassing its Japanese ally
with whatever war crimes it committed in China. I don't think it
has ever been interested.
\_ Well, "authorities" said it was suicide. What "authorities"?
Local cops, I assume. How difficult is it for leet Japanese
ninja types to fake a suicide that will fool the local
constabulary?
\_ An alternative theory is that the research on the Bataan
Death March which the http://sfgate.com article said she was doing in
Kentucky days before she was foudn dead traumatized her enough to
commit suicide. Like maybe she opened up old wounds of some
80-year-old WWII vet and felt guilty about it...
\_ What's he gonna do, beat her to death with a walker?
\_ you're a craven asshole.
\_ Not really, I thought pp was making nonsense hypotheses.
Wasn't meant like that.
\_ I agree, but then it's well known the motd is full
of psycopath.
\_ And FOB idiots.

11/12 I can't seem to get over what I read about Japan's "Biological
Unit 731". I mean I know Japanese did some bad things in
China, but I never really knew the details. Thanks to the
wonder of the internet and the recent discussion of author of
"Rape of Nanking", I decided to Google it. At first it was not
a big deal, all history, but soon I got pretty sick of what I
was reading. I mean all those live experiments on human body.
And now I can't seem to quite get over it. How could any
person with conscience justify what they are doing? I mean
taking pictures of Naked prisoners is bad, but this kind of
stuff is down right horrible. I find myself having some
trouble getting past what I read. I drive a Japanese car,
Japanese stuff is all over my house, and my company works with
Japanese clients and heck I've even been to Japan once and
sort of liked it. But how do I get over what I read? I am just
kinda angry/pissed at something. -Chinese sodan
\_ Attila the Hun, Nero, Ivan the Terrible, slavery, Hitler,
eugenics, Pol Pot, etc. etc. etc. ad nauseum. WWII plumbed horrid
depths of human darkness; it's over. The people in Japan you deal
with nowadays most likely had nothing to do with it. Don't look
at them as compatriots of manics, look at them as people. -John
Japanese stuff is all over my house, and my company works with
Japanese clients and heck I've even been to Japan once and
sort of liked it. But how do I get over what I read? I am just
Easy; pretend you're Tibetan. _/
kinda angry/pissed at something. -Chinese sodan
\_ As a fellow Chinese Sodan I can only say that one should let the
past be the past. There's already too much hatred in the world
to reopen old wounds. Yes, the crimes were horrible, yes,
more Chinese died due to the Japenese than Jews (only the
Russians lost more people), yes Nanking was a crime against humanity,
yes, they treated POWs wit utter brutality. However, we cannot
blame the children for the crimes of their fathers. To do so
would only continue the cycle of hatred. Having said that I do think
that the Japanese need to acknowledge their crimes, like the
Germans have, and make a heartfelt apology to all nations, not
simply China, of their WWII aggressions. The Japanese have,
unfortunately, decided to forget that part of their history.
I believe that this not only affects Sino-Japanese relations,
but it has also greatly damaged the psyche of Japanese society.
I believe that until the Japanese are willing to come to terms
with that past there will always be this sense of guilt
lingering in the corners of their collective culture.
\_ Certainly younger Japanese bear no guilt for old atrocities, but
when you have modern nationalists denying what happened, and no
public national apology, it's at least a tacit approval.
\_ Do you get angry/pissed about atrocities against non-Chinese?
\_ My friend's parents still hold a grudge, they only buy American
cars. Maybe that's why Iris Chang was found in an Oldsmobile.
\_ My first three cars were American, and now I've finally bowed to
quality issues and bought a Japanese one as the fourth.
--- Chinese
\_ Nothing can be done now. Historically people have done some
pretty horrible things, the Japanese aren't alone in this,
although they did take brutality to an artform. Just remember
this whenever someone suggests dropping the bomb on Japan was a
horrible thing to do.
\_ Japan got nuked twice, get over it.
\_ But it wasn't the Chinese who nuked it.
\_ hmm. but the Chinese sold out their culture to
communism, they get what they deserve after that.
\_ huh? what's wrong with communism?
\_ I see you've been brainwashed well.
\_ huh? Nanking was the capital of ROC run by the
KMT, not the CCP.
\_ Older generations of Jews have tended to not purchase German-made
goods, though the younger generations have since abandoned the
practice. Memories fade and people die. You can certain boycott
practice. Memories fade and people die. You can certainly boycott
Japanese goods if it will make you feel better, or you can just
console yourself with the fact that the Japanese who committed
those atrocities are either dead or dying, and the younger Japanese
seem unlikely to repeat the mistakes.
\_ You enjoyed your visit to Japan? Do you speak Japanese? My wife
was a Japanophile, and she took a couple years of Japanese in
college. She's Chinese, btw. When she finally visited Japan,
she was stunned by the constant stream of Japanese chatter around
her disparaging her on her "barbaric" appearance and behavior.
Another friend of my wife's worked as a programmer in Japan for
a few years, and she also came out of the experience a Japanophobe.
\_ your wife probably is barbaric, being chinese and whatnot.
you should upgrade to a better race.
\_ I like sexy barbaric females.
\_ It does sound hot
\_ My coworker (Colombian/Hungarian) lived and worked in Japan
for a year and loved it. Her Japanese friends come to visit
all the time. It's your wife, dude.
\_ Not to get all racist, but you do know how closed-minded
some asian cultures are right?
\_ I once had the honor to escort a Chinese doctor around a
festival in rural Japan. Everyone assumed she was Japanese
and no one made disparaging remarks about her when they
learned the contrary, despite her lack of Japanese language
skill. Anecdotal evidence swings both ways and is, in
general, inconclusive. --erikred
\_ s/some asian cultures/some asians/
\_ Try it out for yourself:
http://www.alllooksame.com
\_ Yes, most of my white friends have had good experience in
Japan. That, however, does not mean that other Asian types
are treated with the same amount of respect and courtesy.
\_ Part of the distinction is whether you are considered a
'visitor' or a 'native.' According to my friends who lived
in Japan, one is treated like a King ... until one stays
for a while. Then eventually one is treated like a native,
which is considerably more stressful, but at least it's how
the japanese treat each other. -- ilyas
\_ Consider that the purpose of the Nuremburg trials and the execution
of Tojo and the Japanese high command was to remove the burden of
collective guilt on the part of the German and Japanese public
after the war. Most Japanese, on hearing about the atrocities
committed by Unit 731, are absolutely horrified. I don't want to
belittle your own feelings; I just want to offer you some historical
solace. --erikred

11/11 Author of Rape of Nanking committed suicide:
http://tinyurl.com/5cs2b
\_ From the article: "Many soldiers went beyond rape to disembowel
women, slice off their breasts, nail them alive to walls. Fathers
were forced to rape their daughters and sons their mothers as other
family members watched."
\_ Where does that info come from I wonder?
\_ The article said she interviewed survivors in China.
\_ Considering the well-documented atrocities committed
by the biological warefare Unit 731, these things
are all very plausible.
\_ So here's what I don't undestand. How did Japan go
from this level of barbarism to being some of the most
peaceful people in the world in one generation?
\_ America.
\_ Perception of external threats from western
imperialist nations leading to desire to have
its own colonial empire leading to invasion
of korea, manchuria. Ideology of superiority
of Japanese and society turning militaristic
leading to despise and dehumanization of
other asian people. Whether Japan is peaceful
or not is still to be seen. It can only be
judged when the nation is under duress. US
did have a positive influence on Japan since
WWII.
\_ Is Japan denying what Unit 731 did too?
\_ I just searched for Unit 731 on google, and boy, I got
pretty angry. I guess what the US did to the Iraqi
prisoners seems like Child's play in comparison.
Now tell me, is Japan denying Unit 731?
\_ the right wingers certainly are denying it,
or the very least, not wanting to teach it
in school or discouraging people to write
about it.
\_ It's pretty horrid. Look for the William Kristol
interview with a veteran of that unit.
The guy's statements are stomach-turning. -John
\_ There were also interviews of Japanese soldiers
who witnessed or participated in the Rape of
Nanking. Some felt a lot of guilt, while others
tried to explain it.
\_ And how have they ruled out some pissed off Japanese right wing
nut killed her?
\_ why do you hate right wing Japanese people?
\_ It's that whole SoCal supermarket--samurai sword thing.
Read up on Yukio Mishima, you may be amused. -John
\_ The US govt is not interested in embarrassing its Japanese ally
with whatever war crimes it committed in China. I don't think it
has ever been interested.
\_ Are you chinese? Do you understand the effects opium trade
had on china?
\_ Well, "authorities" said it was suicide. What "authorities"?
Local cops, I assume. How difficult is it for leet Japanese
ninja types to fake a suicide that will fool the local
constabulary?
\_ An alternative theory is that the research on the Bataan
Death March which the http://sfgate.com article said she was doing in
Kentucky days before she was foudn dead traumatized her enough to
commit suicide. Like maybe she opened up old wounds of some
80-year-old WWII vet and felt guilty about it...
\_ What's he gonna do, beat her to death with a walker?
\_ you're a craven asshole.
\_ Not really, I thought pp was making nonsense hypotheses.
Wasn't meant like that.
\_ I agree, but then it's well known the motd is full
of psycopath.
\_ And FOB idiots.

11/11 Japan today. The questions and answers are pretty boring, but the
pictures are awesome.
http://www.japantoday.com/e/?content=popvox&id=528
\_ I don't get it, which part about the pic makes it 'awesome'?
\_ Sorry, I think Japanese nuts are funny.
\_ Well, I think your Japanese schoolgirl fetish is funny,
so I guess it's a good day for humor.

10/27 On a lighter note, Japan Today on Japanese drinking habits!
http://www.japantoday.com/e/?content=popvox&id=524
\_ I'm usually not one to comment like this, but that Kaori looks like
a skank. The sake blush in the cheeks isn't helping.
a skank. The sake blush in her cheeks isn't helping.
\_ I'm curious. Given the context of a young woman in a completely
different place and culture, what definition of skank are you
thinking of? E.g., does "skank" = !(HOTAZNCH1X)?

10/13 Small-time politicians say Rape of Nanjing never occurred, causing
weekly manga series to be suspended:
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20041014a3.htm
\_ The problem is: how many Japanese people are going to read The Japan
Times, let alone believing it?
\_ Um, tons. The Japan Times is a major newspaper in Japan. The
Mainichi, on the other hand, is a sensationalist rag.

9/9 Oh man, only 75 protesters showed up at Malkin's speach last
night, and from the picture it doesn't even look like any of them
were students.
http://dailycal.org/article.php?id=16037
\_ um, you're confusing active and outspoken Berkeley
students of the 60s with the currently apathetic, confused,
self-centered, and capitalistic minded Berkeley students
of today.
\_ things were pretty racist back then. people today are like,
where's the racism today? Why do black people and hispanics
get preferential treatment in admissions?
\_ Mmm... uninformed troll...
\_ wasn't it pretty racist back then? aren't BCR people
today asking where's the racism today, and why do black
people and hispanics get preferential treatment in
admissions?
\_ blacks and hispanics don't get preferential treatment
in admissions.
\_ yer right. Admissions from these groups have
dropped a lot since the change in the UC system.
BCR people are actually thinking, "Yeah, see, we
were right."
\_ Yes, issues of racism have gotten better, but they're
definitely not gone. To think that they are is
incredibly naive, immature, or stupid.
\_ yer right. BCR people are worried about reverse
discrimination.
\_ I would say most of the protestors were students. There
were 5 or 6 well behaved non student Spartacus league
freaks outside of Dwinelle. The Dwinelle hallway is just
not that big so there wasn't that much room for much
of anything to happen. Michelle Malkin writes that
there were hundreds of her supporters who couldn't get in,
I don't agree. oh that photo you are talking about
is from the sproul lunch thing, i'm talking about her
actual speech at the BCR meeting. the protest photo
was during daylight, malkin's speech was around 8pm
last night. - danh
\_ Whew. I was afraid the Berkeley students were growing
brains or something. Nice to know I've still got plenty of
idiots to laugh at. Of course, inviting Maulkin at all is
pretty stupidly funny.
\_ you can get a good idea of where Malkin is coming from
just by reading her blog for a while
http://www.michellemalkin.com . I really doubt she
woke up one morning and thought "The Japanese
internment was good for the motherland in ww2. I must
correct this historical misunderstanding and write
a book!" - danh
\_ She excoriates Delta Airlines for booting a non-paying
soldier from a flight in favor of a paying customer with
a ticket. I wonder what she has to say about Halliburton
serving spoiled food to US troops.
\_ it's very smart of the BCR boys. they know if they
invite some nutcase who writes a book about how
the Japanese American internment was not motivated
by racism at all and actually helped the ww2 war effort,
she gets some more laughs by claiming they showed
up voluntarily and that over half of the camp detainees
were non Japanese, that people will get pissed
off and show up and shout a lot. then the BCR
people and their unholy David Horowitz zombie masters
can include wild eyed photos of Berkeley liberals
in their next fundraising newsletter. - danh
\_ Americans of German and Italian descent were not ordered
to report to their nearest detention facility
\_ They were in the UK. -John
\_ The Germans and Italians didn't attack American land
in the Atlantic, nor did they have any sort of naval
capability to do so (U-boats were ship-to-ship
weapons); only a handful of battleships/cruisers,
no real amphibious force, and no aircraft carriers
\_ The point was to clarify the "over half of the
camp detainees were non Japanese". Those
individuals didn't have to be there if they were
American citizens and didn't break any laws,
unlike American citizens of Japanese descent.
In any case, if it floats your boat to say that
it was right to detain all Americans of Japanese
descent because the Japanese COULD have invaded
the U.S. and Japanese-Americans COULD turn traitor
and spy for the enemey, and innocent Japanese-
Americans had to be detained in the interest of the
greater good, so be it, but I want to hear you say
it. So far all I'm getting is "what about this,
what about that", "I can understand why they did
that", but no "They were right to intern Japanese-
Americans!"
\_ Not to defend what was done, but put yourself
in the position of the guy who made that
decision the other way, "we won't intern", on
8 Dec 1941. Then a Japanese invasion force
arrives in 1942 and is aided by some Japanese-
Americans. Internment was the conservative
(and in retrospect, unnecessary) thing to do.
\_ Japanese emigration has long been funded
in part by the War Ministry and ultimately
became a national policy in 1932. In
Manchuria, for example, the line between
Japanese immigrant farmer and the military
has always been somewhat blurry. The May
15th incident, where elements of the Japanese
Army assasinated the local Chinese warlord,
involved participation by emigre Japanese
farmers. The Japanese Kwantung Army also
drew recruits and support from Japanese
emigres in China.
\_ I am not sure if you could equate Japanese
emigration to Manchuria with emigration
to US. Since 1895, and even before, Japan
had wanted to make Manchuria part
of the Japanese Empire. I don't believe
you can say the same for emigrants to the
US.
\_ Yes, I am sure a different department
in the War Ministry handled US
emigration.
\_ Japanese also emigrated to SE Asia
to work as prostitutes. I am sure
the War Ministry had a hand in that
too. Not to mention emigration to
Peru, etc.
\_ Now, I am sure you are aware
of the logical fallacy in your
prostitution claim.
\_ no I am not, please
enlighten.
\_ Emigration for prostitution
is different than emigration
for more legitimate reasons.
\_ If prostitutes managed to
emigrate without the
War Ministry's blessing,
so could other people,
(for instance, people
who emigrated to
escape poverty)
which puts a big hole
in your theory that
Japanese emigrants all
emigrated in the service
of Imperial Japan's
interests.
\_ Again, the logical
fallacies fly hard
and fast. 1. I
never said *all*
immigrants were in
the service of
Imperial Japan.
2. That all Japanese
emigre prostitutes
were unsupported by
the Japanese govner-
ment does not imply
that no other Japanese
emigres were supported
by the government.
\_ Was there ever a country invaded by
the Japanese in WW2 where the local
Japanese immigrants did not provide
material or logistic support to the
invading force?
\_ what are the countries where the
local Japanese did provide
support? China? Where else?
\_ Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan that I
know of. Now please come up with
the counter examples.
\_ I am not aware of many Japanese
in Hong Kong when the Japanese
invaded. Taiwan was
a Japanese colony since 1895.
As for Korea, are you talking
about about Korea before or
after it became a Japanese
colony. If after, it's
irrelevant.
\_ Hello, loser: You have just written
"what about this, what about that". I am
looking for "They were right to intern
Japanese-Americans".
\_ It's so easy to speak from your
air-conditioned office in front of
a computer. I envy you your
innocence.
\_ It's so easy to speak from your
air-conditioned office in front of
a computer. I don't envy your lack
of reading comprehension.
I am looking for "They were right to
intern Japanese-Americans".
If you think that way, just write
it down! If you don't, write
that down too! All I'm getting is
"I can understand why they did
that" and "what about this, what
about that".
\_ If I knew what I would have
known then, I would have done
the same thing.
\_ In hindsight, was it the right
thing to do?
\_ Hard to say. I will
allow that some innocents
were caught up in the
internment. Will I say
that everyone interned
were wrongly so? No.
Would some of those
interned have provided
aid to the Japanese had
they the opportunity to
do so? I suspect so.
Is the harm prevented
greater than the harm
created? I don't know.
\_ You know you are being
misleading when you
say "some" innocents
were caught up in the
internment?
\_ What's so misleading
about "some"? I
think "some" is
somewhere between
none and all. Would
I believe that "most"
of the Japanese
immigrants here would
have provided aid
to a Japanese invasion
force? Yes.
_/
[Keep in mind we are talking about American citizens of
Japanese descent, not non-citizen Japanese residents]
Lieutenant Commander Kenneth Ringle, a naval intelligence
officer tasked with evaluating the loyalty of the Japanese
American population, estimated in a 1941 report to his
superiors that "better than 90% of the Nisei [second
generation] and 75% of the original immigrants were completely
loyal to the United States." A 1941 report prepared on
Roosevelt's orders by Curtis B. Munson, special representative
of the State Department, concluded that most Japanese nationals
and "90 to 98 percent" of Japanese American citizens were
loyal. He wrote: "There is no Japanese `problem' on the Coast
... There is far more danger from Communists and people of the
Bridges type on the Coast than there is from Japanese."
\_ Who are "people of the Bridges type"?
\_ Guess first, then read:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Bridges
\_ You mean this report? http://csua.org/u/8z4
This is just the first thing google popped up searching
for "ringle japan". It certainly does not say what you
claimed in your post. Your URL please?
\_ http://csua.org/u/8z5 (Amazon.com page scan)
Read the rest of the page, and the next page, too.
Note that the point I am trying to convey to you is that
the vast majority of American citizens of Japanese
descent were loyal and were no threat to America.
\_ Actually, you meant the page before your reference.
Yours was a quote of Ringle. Now I refer you to
mine, which is a part of the Ringle report itself
(http://csua.org/u/8z4 Where his conclusion is
3% (or 3500 people) are actively dangerous.
\_ why it makes sense to order all Americans citizens of Japanese
descent to report to your nearest detention facility!
\_ All Americans of Arab descent will report to your nearest
re-education facility, to be held until the War On Terror
is over.
\_ the scary thing is, this could very well happen.
\_ I doubt it. More likely is lots of Arabs are questioned
by the feds and iffy ones are surveiled, as if that might not
already be happening. 100% detention of any ethnic group
in America is highly unlikely, because of our prior experience
in this area with Japanese-American internment.
Yes, even if there is a nuclear detonation, I doubt there will
be 100% detention of American citizens of Arab descent,
although there will certainly be plenty of hate crimes.

9/7 An oldie from Japan Today. Asking random japanese people what
they would do if they were foreigners. Also a good page for
disabusing people of the "All asians are hot" sterotype.
http://www.japantoday.com/e/?content=popvox&id=429&page=11
\_ Not all Asians are hot. Only Asian chicks are hot.
\_ Well, the chicks on that page ain't too hot either.

9/7 She has guts
Malkin to speak. Berkeley:
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/09/07/BAGRA8KN0U1.DTL
\_ She probably won't be allowed to get past "Good Evening."
Especially in this case I think the protesters would be better
served letting her speak, since her ideas are mostly
ridiculous, but a lot of Berkeley people just can't seem to
help being obnoxious.
\_ Yep. Berkeley students don't have much respect for free speech.
If the Daily Cal mentions her visit, the entire day's edition
will probably be destroyed. If she brings books with her,
they'll most likely be burned.
\_ I don't see how anyone can take her seriously, I read her book
too. I like how the guy at the end of the above story
(who happens to be a crazed French immigrant, if that matters
at all) says he's not convinced interning the Japanese in
America in WW2 was such a bad thing. - danh
\_ serious question: in the 40s, what would you do to help
secure our safety? I'm open to hearing different views
\_ We should have imprisoned US residents originally from our
enemies' ethnic or national origins, given enormous amounts
of guns and financial aid to whoever was fighting them, ramped
up industrial production like crazy people, then murderously
battled them back inch by inch, island by island, hedgerow by
hedgerow, while flattening their cities into blackened rubble
and eventually turning whatever was left into glowing parking
lots. -John
\_ We should have pulled out of the Pacific area. The Japanese
only used the attack at Pearl Harbor as a last resort to
respond to our meddling in Asia. They would have left us
alone had we pulled out.
\_ I think I see your reasoning, but remember that Japan and
Germany were allies; if the enemy of my enemy is my friend,
then the friend of my enemy is my enemy.
\_ We have no compelling interest in the defense of Europe.
Neither Japan nor Germany wanted to invade the US. We
were the ones who drove Japan to war with us by our
discriminatory and crippling trade practices with them.
\_ Wow. Evil motd today. *golf clap* -- ilyas
\_ That's really a 'hindsight is 20-20' suggestion. At the time
we were interested in containing our aggressive rival. Any
suggestion to pull back would probably have been seen as
uncalled for and cowardly.
\_ Someone asked how we could have secured our safety. I
answered. Would pulling out not be better for our
security and vastly preferable to a two-front war in
Europe and Asia? The Axis powers were our enemy only
because we drove them to become our enemies. They would
have gladly left us alone had we the wisdom to leave them
alone in turn.
\_ It's easier to think about the WW1 situation. We clearly
didn't have any particular need to go fight Germany then.
With the help of German diplomatic mistakes it was easy to
get the public to go along and help fight a meaningless
political war that set the stage for WW2.
\_ it's impossible to pull out after Pearl Harbor. The Japs
were stupid to attack Pearl Harbor. If they had just kept
quiet in the Pacific then they'd have a much better chance
of dominating the Pacific.
\_ The Japanese also attacked America's colony
in the Far East and attacked and killed Americans
there.
\_ The Japanese should have won. Then the world would be much more
Asian friendly than it is now.
\_ Japanese penis so small.
\_ I think you're all missing the point, or at least my point,
that Michelle Malkin is totally nuts and doesn't have
a very deep understanding of history. If you take her
argument that there were several Japanese on the west coast
and they could have caused trouble, that makes little sense.
The people who managed the interning of the Japanese population
did not have access to and did not know about any secret
MAGIC Japanese military communications. The true naval
threat to the US, the germany navy, was very active off
of the east coast, in the Atlantic, I have read that several
German and Italian Americans lived on the east coast, why
weren't they forcefully uprooted and kept in the middle
of nowhere? The whole fake controversy sounds like a David
Horowitz brainstorm, does anyone really truly care today
about reperations paid to Japanese Americans? I never heard
of someone writing that the internment was misunderstood
until recently. Does anyone remember how David Horowitz
raised a shitstorm several years ago about reperations
to slaves? - danh
\_ ok i amend the above, a few italians and germans were
interned. not 120k of them - danh
\_ David Horowitz will never be able to get over the fact that he
was once a Black Panther associate and a self-styled left wing
"radical." He breathes the fire of the born again. He's a
bloviator for sure.
\_ That you haven't heard anything about it before means nothing.
A majority of those detained were either Japanese expatriates
or Japanese dual citizens. Some of these even
returned to Japan to fight against the US.
In other countries conquered by the Japanese the members
of the expatriate communities were quick to establish
Japanese surrogate governments.
The Pacific fleet was completely destroyed, invasion was
a very real possiblity. Any credible military commander
would have considered internment. It made sense at the time,
just as detaining German and Italian citizens did.
\_ Reagan was fooled into apologizing for internment by a stacked
pro-reparations commission!
\_ http://csua.org/u/8yf (wikipedia)
"Among academics, the broad historical consensus is that the
camps were indeed a product of wartime hysteria and racism
rather than arising from legitimate fears of sabotage."
-- When it occurred at a time I didn't live, and the area
has been researched this well, and I don't smell bias, and
historians who lived in this time came to this consensus, I
believe broad historical consensus, not a conservative
young-un born in 1970.

8/27 What is it about Japan and Robots? Robotech, Mr. Roboto song,
Honda Asimo, Sony Aibo, and all the weird Japanese robot movies.
What's up with that?
\_ Uhm, Styx wasn't japanese.
\_ Yes, but they were making the same point.
\_ I, Lobot!
\_ Wow you're right! I bet no one ever noticed that before.
\_ RACIST!

8/26 How come nihon is spelled as Nippon?
\_ Both are used in Japanese; "nippon" is the older and more formal
pronounciation. --mconst
\_ Both are used in Japanese; "nippon" is the more traditional and
formal pronounciation. --mconst
\_ I heard that "Nihon" was a modern (informal) creation to soften
the "harsh" sound of the original word. --dbushong
\_ The Daijirin dictionary dates both back to before 1200 AD.
--mconst
\_ Hiragana -> romanji is not a 1-1 mapping. -- ilyas
\_ Actually, it is 1-1 mapping... except for the fact that there
are more than one mapping. Most commonly used mapping now is
Hepburn system. Either way, kana->romanji mapping has nothing
to do with the OP's question. "Japan," written as "day/sun"
"main/true/book" is read both ways.
\_ romaji
\_ Heh, the word 'romaji/romanji' is the instance
of the same problem. I have seen it spelled both
ways by Japanese. Not a 1-1 mapping. -- ilyas
\_ I've seen intelligent educated people confuse
they're and their. Your conclusion is
questionable.
\_ I don't know if I'd be so mean about it but,
yes. "Romaji" is a Japanese word and it's
spelling in kana could not be reasonably
transcribed as "romanji" in English.
-- ulysses
\_ Except by Tokyo-ites, who have the
annoying habit of adding a nasal sound
before voiced consonants. "chigau"
(meaning "that's not right") often
becomes "chingau," and some people will
spell it that way in romaji. --erikred

7/16 American hero against communism, chess genius, and freedom player,
arrested in Japan for deportation to U.S.:
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Japan-Bobby-Fischer.html?hp
\_ Talented nutjob caught using revoked passport, will be returned
to face charges for violating a different law.
\_ "talented" is quite an understatement. He may or may not face charges
for playing in YugoSlavia when they were under sanction. Probably
will, but it sucks if so. They should leave him alone. -phuqm
\_ Hey, don't forget anti-Semite!
\_"Of course I am not anti-Semitic. The Arabs are Semites, and I
am certainly not anti-Arab" --Bobby Fisher
\_ Hey, don't forget Jew!
\_ Hey! It's another self-hating jew!

6/29 What can I say? I love japantoday. Get your surreal ignorance
here! http://www.japantoday.com/e/?content=popvox&id=493
(Asking who or what should take the lead in World Affairs)
\_ Shinya Kato thinks the world just needs to smoke some sweet
Jamaican ganja.
\_ I bet he gets along well with Anri.
\_ my favorite: "The world needs an organization that can combine
the progressiveness of the Dutch with the Yee-Ha Ass-kicking
instincts of the the current US Govt."

6/9 Another from http://www.japantoday.com
A Japanese human rights activist who was taken captive
in Iraq in April filed a lawsuit Tuesday against the government
seeking 5 million yen in damages on grounds that his ordeal was
caused by Japan's dispatch of troops to the country.
\_ Given what happened to those folks on returning to Japan, this might
just be a rhetorical lawsuit to slap some sense into his or her
fellow Nihonjin. It won't work. -- ulysses
\_ can his balls be any smaller?
\_ RACIST!
\_ 5 million yen = $50k. It's a symbolic gesture.
\_ He's an idiot. He was told not to go there in the first place
before he went. It's not even a symbolic gesture. It's a stunt.

6/4 How did Asians and Pacific Islanders get in the same "racial
grouping?" There's no cultural connection at all.
\_ They're all colored folk, duh!
\_ Read a book. Race is based on genetics not how you party.
\_ Ok, then give me a reasonably strong genetic link between
Pasific Islanders, Indians, and Japanese. Oh, and where do
guys like Aboriginies fit in? They're black but not
african.
\_ Australia and the Pacific islands were all settled by
people from southeast Asia.
\_ He was trying to make a point and you had to bring some
trivial and easy to find facts into this. WTF is wrong
with you? Why are you taking away his right to hate?
\_ Sheesh, so was North America, what aren't Native
Americans considered asians? Heck, if you're gonna
argue about origins, we all came from Africa.
\_ NA aren't asian because they go too far back to
that link and due to isolation have become a distinct
people not just on a grand scale but between major
tribal groups. The Navajo of today has very little
in common with his Asian ancestor of 5k to 10k years
ago. Origins count but drift due to time and
isolation creates new races. If you really want to
be that way about it, there is no such thing as race.
Humans like to classify things even if they are
artificial. However, since we know from medical
research that difference races react differently to
different drugs and other procedures there really
are different races which most believed formed after
the out-of-Africa event or time period.
\_ If you are really interested in race, there is a good SciAm
article on it recently, that is well worth reading. I think I
was able to find a non-pay link to the text at one point. i'll
see if i can dig it up. -phuqm
http://www.srcf.ucam.org/medsoc/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1

6/3 http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20040603/6255200s.htm
"The good men are all married," writer Junko Sakai says. "Those left
behind are all nerds or without jobs or violent or not nice-looking."
Ahem.
\_ http://www.keithwatanabe.net (I rest my case.)
\_ that's good, at least there's an 'or' between 'nerds' and 'jobs'.
\_ "She says Japanese men sometimes propose to women with lines like:
'I want you to cook miso soup for me the rest of my life.'"
This is a _very_ traditional way to ask a woman to marry you. The
words themselves are virtually meaningless now. I was skeptical
of the article to begin with, but this overt lack of cultural
context cinches it.
\_ cool! I will try that line on the next hot japanese babe I meet.
\_ So what exactly do you disagree with in the article?
\_ She misses the point that the good women are all married, too.
If you're 30+ and not married, you're not a good prospect for
marriage.
\_ So not only are the leftover men not good prospects, but
the leftover women aren't either?
\_ Correct. All the leftovers get to live angst ridden
lives like Sex in the City and suffer one bad attempt
at having a relationship after another because they're
undeserving of anything better and wouldn't know it if
they had better anyway. That's what makes them left-
overs and poor prospects. It's self-fulfilling.

6/3 This is pretty cool, I especially like the 2nd guy's answer. No
foreigners!
http://www.japantoday.com/e/?content=popvox&id=484
Oh yeah, and from the same page, but creepy as only Japan can be.
http://www.japantoday.com/e/?content=popvox&id=485
\_ No wonder so many gaijin flock to Japan to teach English.
\_ What's truly sad is that Christopher Goto almost certainly has
a girlfriend.
\_ Who?
\_ Obviously you didn't open the link.
\_ I POSTED the link. I just didn't pay that much
attention tothe fat guy's name.

6/3 I notice a lot of foreigners say "Oiii." Is that our equivalent of
"hey" or "dude"?
\_ It's spelled "Oy!"
\_ Do you mean the French for "yes"?
\_ that would be "oui"
\_ I believe it's the Japanese.
\_ Aussies, Brits, and the occasional Kiwi say "Oi." Mel Brooks says
"Oy." Japanese punks say "Oiii." In the first and last, it's like
our "hey!" but in the second, it's more like "oh, brother."
\_ I like "aiya!". Even the blacks, hispanics and whites say it
at the poker card club
\_ That one gets a lot of international play: aiyaiyai, or aiya,
either way.

6/3 Powell: Iraq Will Have No Veto on U.S.-Led Force
In other words, do what we want you to do, or we will remove you
by force.
\_ The US has never granted another power control over our military.
That would be... stupid. What's new? Our men rape Japanese women
every other years and what happens? Nothing. Why aren't you here
bitching about that and blaming BushCo?

6/1 hmm, the thread got deleted before I could admit I was wrong.
Japan *did* offer to "surrender" before the dropping of the bombs.
On the condition that they maintain sovereignty. The eventual
surrender, was, though, still conditioned on the continued titular
reign of the emperor. -phuqm
\_ Once the bombs fell, and Stalin decided he wanted a piece of the
pie, Japan just surrendered. The Emperor was kept because the
Americans thought keeping him would ease the occupation. -- ilyas
\_ I agree that the Americans thought it may be advantageous to
keep him, that doesn't change the fact that it was a requested
and accepted condition. -phuqm
\_ http://www.law.ou.edu/hist/japsurr.html Search for
'unconditional'. -- ilyas
\_ I may possibly be unduly stretching the idea of
"conditional", but (see the other link) it does
still appear to me that they asked for it, and if
they did, and we implicitely accepted this
condition (even if we would have allowed it
anyway), then it is conditional regardless of how
many times the surrender document signed by some
general says "unconditional".
The roads are called "highways" in the legal code
However if you say that it is legal for you to
ride your bicycle on the highways, I will still
argue with you. -phuqm
\_ It was not requested. The idea of surrender was so out there
for most members of the public (although not for several
of the Jap cabinet, like PM Suzuki)--you have to remember
that the Emperor's voice had not even been heard in public
for years before a recording of his reading the surrender
was played on Japanese radio. It barely occurred to anyone
that the Emperor might not be around at some point.
MacArthur saw it as a wise move to use some parts of the
Japanese authority structure to ease occupation. -John
\_ This is untrue. The japanese were beseeching the Russians
to change sides until the last days of the war. The Japanese
Imperial Army was almost completely intact in Indochina with
several army groups.
\_ phuqm, please post a link or reference for your belif. I have
never read anything that suggested the Japanese unconditional
surrender was really conditioned on the continuation of the
Emperor, although I have read the opposite several times.
Link? -jrleek
\_ This is untrue. The japanese were beseeching the Russians
to change sides until the last days of the war. The Japanese
Imperial Army was almost completely intact in Indochina with
several army groups.
\_ This is from your link: "...the Emperor must be
left on the Imperial Throne. The Allies replied
that the Emperor would be subject to the Allied
Occupation Commander." Now, i'm well aware that
it was called an "unconditional surrender" (and
was before i typed the above), but the above is
a CONDITION that that was requested and accepted.
The fact that he was subject to the Allied Command
is irrelevant to my point accept that it
ACKNOWLEDGES the fact that the position WILL
continue to exist (the condition).
--Having read Ilyas' link, though, i'd have to say
that my postion is weaker than that article makes
out, the only support being an explicit reference
to "The authority of the Emperor" (which again is
assumed in the legal document, as it is being
put down). -phuqm
\_ Really, the problem is that this isn't a reasonable
debate. Go read any comprehensive history of the
Japanese Occupation. It's very clear the MacAurthur
had the power to remove the emperor, he just
descided not to. The effect was similar though, the
emperor was demoted from divine to amusing
tradition. Hence the nearly completely secular
Japan we have today. -jrleek
\_ if they removed the Emperor the Japanese would
have fought to the very last man, and the entire
country would have been a giant graveyard. My great-
grandmother was trained with all her fellow villagers
with bamboo spears to fight the American invaders,
because they were sure the Americans were going to
come into the country raping and pillaging. -brain
\_ uh, are you a mix? you sure don't look
like a Nip. -pro atomic bomb man
\_ I'm not exactly sure about how it would have
come about, but I think any removal would
have been well after the surrender. That
would make it seem a bit late for the bamboo
spears. Especially since the Emperor was
responsible for the surrender. That site
mentions that there was an attempted coup to
keep fighting, but I think the regular
people would have gone with the emperor.
That is, no bamboo spears. Plus, the
Americans came bearing food... -jrleek
\_ people have the "power" to break many
agreements they make, or laws enacted. That
has little relevance to this arg. -phuqm
\_ So, basically you believe there was some
kind of secret deal made with Emperor that
has been kept so secret for the last 60
years you're the only one who knows about
it? In that case, I guess you're right. I
can't argue with that. -jrleek
\_ wasn't emperor just an amusing figure head
through long periods of japan's history?
wasn't shogun the guy with real power? even
during ww2, emperor only has limited power,
right?
\_ Somewhat correct. Even when the Emperor had no
actual power (under the Tokugawa Shogunate), he
was respected as the divine son of Heaven. The
rallying cry of the Meiji Restoration (which
removed the Shogunate from power) was the renewed
respect for the authority of the Emperor. After
the Meiji Restoration, the Emperor was perceived
as the beloved father-figure and leader of all
Japan, even though the actual running of the war
was done by Tojo and his upper level circle of
officers. The repudiation of the policies of that
inner circle is what allows the Emperor to both
admit culpability (and mortality) while still
remaining Emperor.
\_ That's what the emperor wanted the world to believe
when he surrendered.
\_ the ww2 emperor does have some power, more
so than the emperors under say tokugawa
shogunate, but even his power is rather
limited.
\_ the emperor is an important figurehead- he
is directly decended from gods. To maintain a
valid claim to power, you have to have the
emperor still alive. What the Meiji Restoration
was about was the emperor siezing back his
power from the shogun, with the backing of some
of the larger houses and the merchants who
would directly benefit from the new reforms
he hadin mind. -brain

5/31 According to the History Channel, in WW2, the Japanese targetted
mainly at big targets (battleships, cruisers, military airfields,
etc) so didn't really hit civilian ships (food, support, etc)
the way Germans did with their U-boats. In contrast the US targetted
a lot of Japanese civilian sites. Why didn't the Japanese do the
same thing? Were they afraid of retaliation or something?
\_ The Japanese couldn't. The Japanese correctly determined that they
needed to destroy the American carriers first, which they failed to
do (while losing theirs) at Midway. Before Midway, they didn't have
the control of the seas necessary to target infrastructure. After
Midway, they had bigger problems. -- ilyas
\_ They had control of the seas prior to June 1942, and used it
to attack any infrastructure they could (Philippines, India,
Singapore, Australia, China, etc.) Fact is that there wasn't
nearly as much commercial or large-scale civilian shipping in
the western Pacific for them to attack. As for the carriers,
imperial naval war games had seen their destruction as a
"nice to have", but weren't particularly concerned when they
realized that Adm. Kimmel had ordered them out of Pearl Harbor.
The Japanese advances in 1942 were more focused on securing a
buffer "rampart" against American attacks on Japanese oil
transports from the Dutch E. Indies than the actual offensive
destruction of US power after 1941. Midway was just another
attempt to deny the US a forward base, rather than part of
a strategic offensive against US shipping or the W. Coast. -John
\_ There was shipping, it's just that after the Japanese
simultaneously attacked Pearl Harbor, Malaya, Dutch
E. Indies and the Philippines, all civilian shipping
in the Western Pacific, South China Sea and the Strait of
Melaka, except those serving Japanese interest, pretty
much stopped. I would bet there were still some ships
going from India to Australia, and from Australia to
the US though.
the US though. Also, the Japanese had their hands full
protecting their own shipping, and did have have
protecting their own shipping, and did not have have
the resources to send uboats all over the Pacific
and Indian Oceans. Compared to Germany, Japan is
much less self sufficient in terms of resources.
\_ Hence "not nearly as much". The Japanese also never had
a coherent submarine strategy. -John
\_ Because most of the fighting took place in their waters.
\_ Don't forget what the Japanese did in Korea and China.
\_ also Burma and the Philippines.
\_ The Japanese didn't have the resources. They were fighting a land
war in Asia and they couldn't forward base any naval power (as
America would be able to do in Austrailia). Attacks against America
were limited to military targets out of necessity. Attempts to
strike the US mainland were nearly non-existant. The goal was to
control the Pacific, not to conquer the US.

5/24 Richard Biggs (played Dr. Franklin on Babylon 5) died this week at age
41 (unknown cause--likely a massive stroke or aneurysm). He leaves
behind a wife and two children. There are auctions on eBay to go to
memorial fund: http://tinyurl.com/2az5w
Donations can be made by PayPal:
PayPal Account: RBiggsMemorial@aol.com
\_ This makes news on the motd vs. Alistair Cook's passing a couple
months previous?
\_ Most sodans never heard his "Letters From America" off BBC News.
\_ A sudden death of a young person is always more news.
\_ Why does an actor's family need donations?
\_ Well, he's not a big time rich actor. I suppose they aren't
doing much better than middle class. Although why you'd
want to donate money for ANYONE's funeral, I don't know.
\_ It's a Japanese tradition to contribute funds to offset the
costs of a funeral for a relative or close associate; It's
called "koden". Not that Biggs' family is Japanese, but
there's precedent. In Western funerals, people send 50-100
dollars of flowers, why not send money to help pay for the
casket instead or for the costs of burial/cremation?

5/6 Rush Limbaugh on the Abu Ghraib incidents:
http://mediamatters.org/static/audio/limbaugh-20040504.mp3
\_ Got a transcript? I can't listen to him at work.
\_ Got a transcript? I can't listen to him.
\_ Partial transcript here:
http://mediamatters.org/items/200405050003
\_ Despicable, and one more reason conservatives should abandon Rush.
Compare that to Glenn Beck's comments that he supports the troops
but would like to spit in the face of the soldiers who did this.
-emarkp
\_ Wow. Talk about taking things out of context. When will he start
saying that the prisoners were having fun too?
\_ "When you invade a country, you have to break some eggs.
My enemies are blowing this out of proportion, to get to ME."
-Dick Cheney
\-"The Iraqis should be glad they were abused by Americans.
If they had been abused by Italians for Japanese, then
it would have been even more humiliating." -D. Cheney
\_ Well, the (not so) silent majority of Americans think they are.

4/30 Now do you still sympathize with the Japanese hostages? They call
their captors resistance fighters who acted in self-defense.
http://tinyurl.com/39l6e (yahoo AP)
\_ Yes.
\_ yes. For all pratical purpose, their kidnap is just part of their
resistance toward occupation.
\_ Just because they're stupid doesn't mean I don't sympathize
with them. I know many stupid people.
\_ This story is interesting. Just reading your description, I
thought, Stockholm syndrome, so what? But the gist of it is that
their captors didn't threaten them with death every day, like
they did with the European hostages. I can understand why the
Japanese police didn't believe their stories: these two guys
are idiots, at least.
\_ No, of course not. If you stick your hand in a meat grinder, we
all know you'll get your hand turned into hamburger. If they got
tortured and killed I might feel badly for their families.

4/22 What the hell is wrong with the Japanese?
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/22/international/asia/22CND-JAPAN.html
[URL fixed]
\_ If I believed in god, at this point i would thank God that I was
born an American. I'm particularly dissapointed by Koizumi. Who
would have thought a heavy metal fan could be such a pussy?
\_ Well, anyone who wonders why politics are all screwed up in
Japan, you can read this.
\_ japanese are weird.
\_ don't have NYtimes account.
\_ guest_ / guest_
\_ csuamotd / csuamotd
\_ oh...thanks.
\_ Were they sent by the govt? if not, they were really on their
own and were responsible their safety.
\_ They went on their own. The point is that they're being
criticized and ostracized for going against the government's
reccomendation to stay away. In this country, I like to think
we'd show a little sympathy for people who went through all that
when trying to do a good deed, even if it was reckless.
\_ They brought dishonor and trouble to Japan, duh. The solution
is ritual self-disembowelment.
\_ With a rusty spoon?
\_ freepers are the norm in japan!
\_ You are an idiot. Freepers aren't statists. No really, you
are an idiot. Go dig your own grave and kill yourself, and rid
us of your stupidity. Freepers aren't statists.
\_ if you call him an idiot it won't help. he just hasn't
ever gone to the site probably. I really really hate
freepers for unrelated reasons, but the above poster
definitely has no idea what he's talking about.
\_ i know exactly what i'm talking about, i know how a
freeper differs from what's discussed in the article,
and i know how they're similar. but mostly, i was
trolling for freepers.
\_ good work then! you seem to have succeeded.
\_ Well, though I don't think they deserve ALL the criticism they got,
there is something to be said about fools who go into a tight spot
without knowing what they are doing and the abillity to make a
positive difference. Do you remember the "human shields" from
Germany who want to keep our army of liberation off Iraq?

4/2 http://tinyurl.com/2h3cv
"Russia said in February that it was developing a so-called
hypersonic missile technology capable of piercing the United
States' system. But Mr. Ishiba said he did not believe that a
shield would encourage other countries to develop missiles that
would defeat the system. "If you launch a missile and it gets
shot down," he said, "you give up missile production." "
** Huh? **
\_ saying that if the non-hypersonic missiles get shot down
why bother with missiles
\_ Maybe he's trying to say there's cheaper ways of fucking us up.
\_ The argument for missle defense is not that it will be
perfect. That's stupid. The argument goes more like: (as a
metaphor) Despite the locks on your door, thieves can
metaphor) Despite the locks on your door, theives can
break in and steal. Should you therefore leave the door
open?
\_ I've never felt safer than when i lived just up from a crazy
biker dude who left his front door literally wide open all
the time. if anyone wanted to rob our place, they'd probably
the ceiling. the DETERENCE of the mad biker was much more
just wander in the front door and get blasted straight through
the cieling. the DETERENCE of the mad biker was much more
\_ Ok you're safer from random violence. But psycho biker may
attract violence, or somehow harm you. I'd rather just live
in a normal neighborhood and take steps.
useful than a locked door. deterence has worked with nuclear
weapons for half a century as well.
\_ How much have we spent on Star Wars? $100B? $200B?
\_ About $2b total, mostly in basic research to get where we
are today. Please stop inventing random numbers. With $2b
they wouldn't be *any* safer after the union driven harbors
got their fingers in the pie.
open?
How much safer could our harbors and airports be
for that much money?
\_ But it'd be easier for a terrorist to sneak a nuclear
device in the same way drugs get in here from South
America. So the argument is more like: What good is
locking your door if you've got a gaping hole in your
wall big enough to drive a car through?
\_ Umm, not exactly. Nice red herring though. We have
something of a defense against that. It sucks, but
it's not nothing. We have NO defense against
missiles.
\_ But what's the bigger threat? Terrorists are
the main bad guys these days, and they don't
usually go for (expensive) ICBMs when they have
cheaper and simpler options.
\_ The red herring here is that we should/can only
\_ No, the red herring is that a $30 lock is
analagous to a $200 billion missile defense
system. The missile defense system is simply
not cost-effective; a lock on your door is.
\_ What is the cost of a city getting incinerated?
I suspect more than $200b. What is the cost
of your house getting robbed? I suspect less
than $200b. You're struggling with the concept
of appropriate levels of response. The correct
level for keeping a city from turning to ashes
is much higher than for your bike parked out
on telegraph.
defend against a single threat. The reality is that
we should try to defend against all threats. Natn'l
defense is not an either-or proposition.
\_ That's true that terrorists are the bigger
threat, but that's doesn't make them the ONLY
threat. We're working on how to stop
terrorists, but don't be fooled into thinking
that NK, China, or even Russia are completely
neutralized. With the lazer 747 we can help
defend Japan and SK against the North.
\_ what do you mean "even russia"? russia
is still the only country that can
incinerate the entire USA if it so chooses.
strong man putin is pulling russia back
on its feet, and in this era of cheap
labor and high material costs, the vast
land and riches of mother russia is
going to benefit russia tremendously.
the russian bear shall rise again!
\_ "incinerate the entire USA". So you think a
country that can potentially only incinerate
the west coast such as China or NK isn't a
threat? btw, russia is still going through the
death throes of self destruction. they are
not yet in a recovery phase.
\_ you are out of date. russia is very
much into recovery. It is using the
formula of get rich first with capitalism
under strong authoritarian leadership
\_ russia is fucked. their last election
was a total joke. they're teetering on
the edge of dictatorship (again) and now
they have a broken military *and*
terrorists beating on their doors at
the same time. i'm not out of date. im
right here in 2004. you're living in the
hey day of post-communism but before they
saw how hard the road to freedom really
is. oh yeah and their environment was
and still is *devastated* from what the
communists did to it which makes our
worst problems look like a fairy land of
healthy goodness. russia = fux0red.
open?
cheaper and simpler options.
\_ you are out of date. russia is very
much into recovery.
followed by US allies like Japan, S. Korea,
Taiwan, Singapore, etc. when these nations
were in a similar stage of development.

3/11 Did Japan ever have a chance of winning WWII?
\_ I don't know about Germany, but Japan really should have stopped
in 1931 and consolidated its gains of Korea and Manchuria. It
could've been 3 times its current size in area and population.
\_ If you can read some of the Japanese text, you will know that
the reason why Japanese continue to fight China is because
Japanese know very well that they can't consolidate their
gains in Manchuria unless China is fully subdued.
\_ yea, written by those same Japanese who thought they
could attack US and still win the war. The Japanese
warmongering militarists wrote that cause they need
war to advance their careers and keep them in power.
\_ Both sides underestimated each other. The US never thought
Japan would attack. Japan thought the US would roll over.
\_ I agree. But the American industrial machine would have
been to strong.
\_ They are not at war with the US, and not even with
China. War restarted with China in 1937 when Japan
invaded other parts of China.
\_ They had food, but they needed oil and rubber.
\_ Not if they didn't start another war with China by
invading in 1937. US is happily trading with Japan
until like a year before 1941?
\_ yup, selling scrap metals, oils, and all the good stuff
which fueled Japanese imperial army's machinary.
\_ i dont' understand this, why so many people on MOTD *WISH*
Japan has consolidated their conquest?
\_ motd full of crazy asian people. My car so haaaaa!
\_ I don't think wish is the key word.
\_ No. The Japanese wanted the US to accept their annexation of
southeast Asia, making them the major power of the Pacific. The US
would never have agreed to cede that region to Japan. The US had
claimed the Pacific as their ocean.
\_ Philippines was a US Colony. If Japan invades the Philippines,
it is declaring war on the US
\_ Wrong part of SE Asia. Think Indonesia. Oil and rubber. The
Japanese would never had touched US territories if the US
hadn't put the hammer down on trade. SE Asia had most of what
Japan had been trading for with the US.
\_ skipping the Philippines and Taiwan to get to
Indonesia is strange. Indonesia is south of
the Philippines.
\_ Yes, you are correct. Lesson time! US no trade -> Japan
must find other oil -> Oil in SE Asia -> Japan knows US
not let Japan get oil -> Japan invade PI, maybe Hawaii
to scare US -> Japan screw up in Hawaii -> US eventually
kick Japan ass.

02/26 Microsoft Japan office Raided By Japan's Fair Trade Commission
http://csua.org/u/66e (bloomberg)
\_ It's on slashdot. Go post there if you care.
\_ Not everyone on the motd reads /., and the story is still
deeply satisfying.
\_ Now that they know the story is there they can go there.

1/29 "Lost in Translation" was it really that good? Nominated for best
picture. I haven't seen it yet. Will our fabulous motd movie critic
give us a review? Thanks.
\_ I thought it blew chunks, but I was in the minority I guess.
Scarlett Johansenn (sp?) is just not that good an actress, and as
much as I love Bill Murray he had scarcely anything to do. This
is besides the fact that it recycles yet again some really tired
cliches about Japan. However, the Academy Awards picks this year
are on the whole amazingly good (3 nominations for City of God!!!).
In fact I'd be surprised if most Americans had a chance to see
most of the nominated movies.
\_ Seabiscuit? ... SEABISCUIT?!
\_ "on the whole"...of course they had to nominate some crap,
but notice that Harvey Weinstein Oscar Bait (tm) like Cold
Mountain mostly got snubbed. Hey usually the Oscars are
100% Seabiscuit-like, so I was impressed.
\_ Seabiscuit is one of the best movies I have seen in
the past few years and deserves to win. The "crap"
that was nominated was ROTK (and its predecessors).
\_ I agree with you, in part. LOTR sucked monkey nuts.
Sea Biscuit is not fit to clean stables with.
\_ I think soda has got to be one of the only
places where you will find people that dislike
the LoTR movies. Odd, that.
\_ It's not necessarily "dislike." It's just that
there are so many better choices.
\_ I liked them all, but they are not worthy
of an Oscar. If they are then Raiders of
the Lost Ark should've swept the Oscars, baby!
\_ Just when you thought the trolls were safely stowed
in the movie....
\_ Good? Yes. Best Picture? No.
\_ I thought it was interestingly ambiguous, but not wholly
satisfying. -tom
\_ Good. Not great. IMO, Academy voters voted this in because
Bill Murray's character said "I want to eat healthier ... eat
Japanese food", and all the fatties agreed.
\_ I thoroughly enjoyed it, but then I did live in Japan for six
years, which probably explains why the rest of the audience didn't
laugh as hard as I did. Best Picture? I don't know about that...
Bill Murray does the sad clown very well. --erikred
\_ For a relaxing time, make it Suntory Time.
\_ Have any Sodans tried Suntory Whiskey? How is it?
\_ Overpriced and mediocre. Many salary-men drink it watered
down (mizu-wari), which is even worse.
\_ Do you like the feeling of alienation?
\_ review in comic form: http://www.geocities.com/cogsci127/lint.gif
\_ I think it is amusing that all the whities that have been to
Japan say that it is a good study of Japanese culture, while
the Japanese claim that it is racist.
\_ Funny I haven't heard that from my own pool of whities. All of
those I know who have been to Japan including myself say it's
a great film for the experience of being in metro Japan - that's
different from being a "good study of Japanese culture".
\_ Funny, I've heard P.C. white people saying it's racist, and
Japanese people saying they didn't find anything offensive.
\_ My Japanese wife thought it was hilarious. Neither of us think
it's a good study of Japanese culture. It's a good study of
what it's like to be jet-lagged and culture-shocked in Tokyo.
It's not racist-- the gag is that Bill Murray is confused and
tired, not that the Japanese are weird. --erikred
\_ Dude. Sorry. They are weird. Nice, terribly civilized,
very polite, cultured, but fucking weird. -John
\_ Actually, the culture is majorly fucked up, and
the "weirdness" is the natural result of that.
\_ This coming from the man who lives in Switzerland?
I think we're back to the pot-kettle relationship.
...nothing against Switzerland, mind you, I'm just
saying.... --erikred
\_ A brief look at, say, Japanese cartoons makes me think,
wow, Japan is the weirdest country ever. I mean, there's
some seriously bizarre stuff. Then I think, well, we in
America watch a cartoon starring a sponge wearing pants,
and I think pot, kettle, black.
\_ While I agree with you in principle, I hafta say; I've
never seen DVDADO tentacle porn featuring underage
virginal school girls in any popular american animation.
The Japanese certainly seem to have some strange...err...
never seen DVDADO tentacle porn on underage virginal
school girls in any popular american animation. The
Japanese certainly seem to have some strange...err...
interests.
\_ Hi Eli! What is it with you and tentacle porn?
\_ Mmmm...Tentacle porn...
Japanese certainly seem to have some strange...err...
interests.
\_ Hi Eli! What is it with you and tentacle porn?
\_ I SO did not post that. I don't like tentacle
porn. What are you talking about, Mr. Anonymous
Troll? --lye
\_ Mmmm...Tentacle porn...
\_ Hehe, and this is the trap: all you get from Japan
is the weird tentacle fetish stuff, so you assume
that that's all they watch. All they get from the
US is cop dramas about solving your problems with
guns, so they assume that we're obssessed with guns
and violence. If you can't see the communication
gap, you're not looking hard enough. --erikred
\_ Except the Japanese would be right.
\_ RACIST!
\_ I thought it was fantastic. But i think everyone would agree
that it's worth seeing. If you're in the mood for a movie and
you're willing to spend the $9, then go see this film. It is
better than 90% of the crap that's out there. 90%, not 99%.

1/9 Finished Medal of Honor Rising Sun. Graphics is definitely better than
the first one. However, the storyline sucked. They should have made
the last round relating to atomic bomb (bombadier, gunner on B-29,
etc). Also it's so stupid that they had to kill every single Asian
guy, even the good ones working for U.S. (Tanaka). It's like that
movie Anti-Trust and other Hollywood movies-- you must kill all Asian
men, good or bad.
\_ Feeling a bit emasculated as an asian male, are you? This reminds
me of the time I was walking behind these two asian dudes right
after brandon lee killed himself and they were talking in a very
serious way how his death and bruce's death only goes to prove
there is a whitey conspiracy to demasculinise the asian male.
I love you guys. BTW, are you a Hoyt Sze fan? Maybe his younger
cousin or something?
\_ After he killed himself? He was accidentally shot during
the making of the Crow.
\_ definitely. The white culture is all about domination of
the weaker race, subduing their power and dignity and
taking away all the other women. Look at all the
Westernized colonies and Asia in general. They're mostly
puppet states and are really owned and influenced and in
some cases controlled by Westerners. The Japanese should
have won and taken Asia back. Oh, and N Korea rewls, they
have a lot of guts to stand up against the Western
bullies-- they will not be the last one to do so.
\_ It's times like this when it's a little tricky to sort
the trolls from the psycho idiots.

12/23 So I'm a bit perplexed about the Nurenberg (sp?) trials and the
trials in Japan. Many of the Japanese class A-C defendands were
excuted for War Against Humanity, and that is cool. But what about
dropping the atomic bomb? Shouldn't the Japanese have their own
trials against say, MacArthur and others who dropped the a-bomb
and killed many Japanese civilians? What about bombing of Dresden,
Germany which has absolutely of no military value and was primairily
meant to demoralize the German civilians? Isn't that also considered
Crime Against Humanity?
\_ Nuremberg, if you are going to comment on history at least read
up on it. As for trials against MacArthur (who actually didn't
authorize the use of the atomic bomb, it was
actually Truman, so you got that wrong also) that's totally
preposterous. How about you Japs formally apologizing for what
you did at the Rape of Nanking, Pearl Harbor and other
atrocities inflicted upon the world. We didn't start the war
with the Japs, you started it with us, so I think making
Hiroshima and Nagasaki glow in the dark for a couple months
is worth saving countless American lives as well as getting
rid of the Jap scourge across Asia. In total, some 8-9 million
people died directly due to Jap aggression, that's way more than the
numbers in the holocaust. As for Germans, I'm sure
the Russian and Jewish community will have the appropriate numbers
on how many people were lost, since Russia lost the most lives
due to Hitler. So, no, I don't think your neo-nazi sympathies
are justified. Oh yeah, you're welcome for the U.S. rebuilding
Japan into a viable nation after the war (instead of turning it
into a wasteland).
\_ A. No we won. B. No, the atomic bomb does not even begin to
compare with the sort of purposeful burtal cruelty the Japanese
perpetrated on the Chinese, Koreans, etc. C. No. the atomic
bomb was much kinder than an invasion would have been. D.
Quiet troll. Read some history.
\_ so you're saying that the WMD is more humane than hand to hand
combat that the Japs were engaged in. Ok.
\_ how about bombing of Dresden, the culture of Europe, the
place where it's revered for art and music? The place
that has very little military value?
\_ But I heard it was the hub for moving German troops.
\_ Dresden was the third largest transhipment point for
German war material. As we all know fighting
a war is all about logistics.
STORICAL ANALYSIS OF THE 14-15 FEBRUARY 1945
BOMBINGS OF DRESDEN
http://www.airforcehistory.hq.af.mil/PopTopics/dresden.htm
\_ Dresden may have had some minor military value in terms of
transport but it had no military presence and was packed
with refugees from the eastern areas. It was openly meant to
"destroy the will for war" and all that, which of course is
ridiculous in a dictatorship and anyway none of the people in
that city were having any nice thoughts about war by that point.
I don't know the figures but in 1945 troop transport was the
least of Germany's problems.
\_ It is not as ridiculous as you might think. Germany may have
been a dictatorship, but Hitler and his band of merry men
were keenly aware of the public mood, and took great pains
to manipulate it for their ends (the propaganda office and
the obvious talent of Joseph Goebbels are a witness to this).
A dictatorship needs to worry about civilian morale more,
not less, than a democracy in time of war. This isn't civ,
it's real life. -- ilyas
\_ I can only imagine this post (about the Japanese
atocracties being hand-to-hand combat) must be either posted
by either A. a troll or B. The stupidest and most ignorant
japan otaku on the motd. I guess you never heard about the
rape on Nanking? Or the POW torture camps? Or the "comfort
women?" Or anything else?
\_ Or the Unit 731 germ warfare unit.

12/16 Do Japanese companies ever make killing games (e.g. killing Germans,
police squad, sniper games, etc)? I've noticed that most of the
Konami games are like DDR with cartoony characters. Even Virtua
Cop looks cartoony. Do they have laws against violence or somethin'?
\_ No really, you aren't that stupid, right?
\_ no really, after killing about 100 Jap soldiers in Medal of
Honor Rising Sun, I started to wonder why Japanese companies
don't make games that kill American soldiers and glorify
Japanese Imperialism.
\_ Because we were the good guys and the modern Japanese want
to set themselves apart from their evil WWII selves.
\_ Now I'm curious. Do Germans play Medal of Honor Allied
Assault? Do they play Wolfenstein? Do Japanese play
Rising Sun? Do Vietnamnese play Vietcong?
\_ http://penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2003-11-26&res=l
\_ rave reviews? That IS kind of odd. Thx for the lnk

12/13 If the Japanese never attacked Pearl Harbor, would America still
have bothered attacking Japan?
\_ The Japanese thought so.
\_ after they took over all of asia, the US would probably start
to think about it. And yes, that was the plan!
\_ If pigs learned to fly, would hell freeze over?
\_ If frogs had wings, they wouldn't bump their asses so much.
\_ Japan would have attacked the Philippines, and the United States
controlled the Philippines, so they would have still been
in the war.
\_ Eventually, possibly. The US were fairly preoccupied with Europe
at the time. -John
\_ It's hard for Japan not to attack USA. USA cut scrap iron and
petroleum export to Japan (two most important thing for Japanese),
USA was also providing fighter planes and military training
/consulting to the Chinese nationalist army. USA's gunboat
was patroling up and down the Yanzi River (attending the so-called
property of free-trade). Not that I like Japan, but USA was
engaging in act of war against Japan well before the Pearl Harbor.
\_ Hey, asian nationalist troll, you should meet up for drinks
with chicom troll. You'd get on like gangbusters. -John
\_ John is an intelligent fella. Yep.
\_ I heard this viewpoint, as well. There is some merit
to it. -!op
\_ US doesn't need to attack Japan. It can screw Japan in many
other ways. Japan has itself to blame though for stupidly
attacking China, which is too big for it to swallow, even when
KMT and CCP can't be bothered to fight Japan, preferring to
save strength to fight each other. US is bad country too,
occupying Filipines, forcing Japan to trade with US, and
messing around in China (helping the Manchu dynasty against
Taiping rebels, selling opium in China, etc.). However US
did do a few good things once in a while, like whacking
Japanese Imperialists, spreading Christianity in China,
\_ and that was good... how?
and returning boxer-rebellion "reparation" money to China to
today graduated from. Most of Tsinghua's graduates love to
come to US, at least used to.
build schools like Tsinghua (Qinghua) University,
from which all these commie sotware programmers we see
today graduated from. Most of these commie Tsinghua's
graduates love to come to US, at least used to.
- the I-want-to-confuse-John troll
\_ US did a few good things, like spreading Christianity?

11/10 I guess there is a hope in US government system. Supreme Court is
hearing Guantanamo Prisoner's case!
\_ Yeah, they heard the Florida '00 Case, too. Vote Green for Clean
Government!
\_ W00t!
\_ That's cool, except can anyone please explain why the 400,000 Nazi
POWs in America (mostly captured from the Afrika Korp) were treated
with food, shelter, and entertainmant while the Japanese Americans
were subjected to Internment, which is... crap?
\_ http://www.jodavidsmeyer.com/combat/bookstore/german-pows-in-america.html
German generals were given fine wine, steak, and music
as POWs. What is wrong with this picture?
\_ so I don't want to sound racist or anything, but all the
Japanese people I personally know of are so myopic, I
wonder how they even flew the Mitsubishi Zeros, let alone
bomb Pearl Harbor. Can anyone explain?
\_ They had glasses if they needed them. Probably used
people with good eyesight for pilots. And the question
*is* kinda racist.
\_ Geneva Convention states that POWs should be treated in much the
same way as your own soldiers. The U.S. also hoped that by
treating German POWs well, Germany would treat U.S. POWs better.
Japanese internees were not covered by the Geneva Convention and
hence were SOL.

10/6 What did he whisper in her ear in "Lost in Translation" ?
Anybody? Anybody?
\_ does anybody think that the representation of japanese
people in this film is kinda f'ed up? I mean, I feel
like she was just trying to show how the characters were
alienated by being in a foreign culture or whatever, but
there definitely were quite a few laughs just based on
"those wacky japanese".
\_ it's the experience of the novice traveller in Japan.
trust me, you'll spend a lot of time thinking, "wow,
those wacky japanese." The movie also had a good deal
of beauty (the wedding procession in Kyoto, for example).
For more on the wacky, imcomprehensible nature of Japan,
check out "Max Danger: Adventures of an Expat in Tokyo"
by Robert J. Collins.
\_ http://imdb.com/NewsFeatures/lostintrans.html
\_ Sorry, it was lost in translation. HAH! Damn, I'm good.
\_ I think the point is that you're not supposed to know. That
said, I'm guessing it's something along the lines of "become
yourself" or other sentimental "bye-bye" pap.... Great movie,
though.
\_ Why don't you download it and run the enhance the audio
track so that you can listen to it. In all likelyhood he
said nothing of relavance to the movie. Why say something,
when you can say nothing and get the same reaction out of
the audience
\_ well, now I'm more interested in seeing this movie. So if
it gets people talking...
\_ He says, "For you".
\_ Do you understand about modern lit. crit. and self-referentiality?
\_ "Nan nen nihon ni irun desu ka?" That was the funniest scene
in the movie. For those who don't know Japanese, the old
woman at the medical clinic was slowly asking him how many
years he was in Japan.
\_ the best part is the two middle-aged ladies in the row
of seats behind them trying, very politely, not to bust up.

9/15 Japanese people are weird:
http://www8.plala.or.jp/Laputa/flash/nasu.html
\_ It's in Japanese. Maybe that's why you're not getting it....since
you probably don't speak Japanese.
\_ Ah, so a walking, singing eggplant is perfectly normal then?
\_ You've never seen Courage the Cowardly Dog, then?
\_ Right -- and a talking sponge in square pants is the height of
animated normality. Get some perspective.
\_ heh
\_ its probably normal if you're as weird as those freaky
Japanese
\_ I am not freaky!
\_ It's the Japanese equivalent of this:
http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/yatta.html
In other words, they took a song by the Russian Lolita duo
Tatu and used similar sounding words from Japanese to populate
their Flash presentation. --erikred

9/12 "Japan Court Jails U.S. Marine for Rape in Okinawa"
http://csua.org/u/4ah (Yahoo News)
You might call him a scapegoat, but I'm happy to see our rapists being
put in jail.
\_ I am suprised, as US Marines typically get away with raping
14 years old girls abroad.

9/3 Is there a korean word equivalent to the japanese (though rapidly
becoming english as well) term "otaku".
\_ What little self contained universe do you live in where "otaku"
is widely used by english speakers?
\_ You're just yelling to hear yourself yell, aren't you?
\_ Partly, but it's more a wider concern about geekdom.
The presumption of the question displays the traits
a little too closely.
\_ otaku
\_ what does "otaku" mean?
\_ I think that the literal translation is "home", but the
meaning is something like shut-in/luser/nerd. Usually
otaku are people who stay at home watching anime, reading
manga, playing computer games and surfing the internet.
Basically your average '1337 GN00/L1NUX H4X0R.
\_ cf. http://www.jekai.org/entries/aa/00/nn/aa00nn70.htm
(yes, you may need to dl Japanese Character support)
\_ What little self contained universe do you live in where "otaku"
is widely used by english speakers?
\_ otaku

8/29 Where there are US troops, there is prostitution. Are there any
\_ how about take out the "US" in there.
\_ how about take out the "US" in there. I mean seriously,
my dad was stationed next to Pakistani troops for while,
they went out whoring and drinking as much as the next guy.
goddamit i got trolled! you win.
reliable media reports on the prostitution situation in Iraq?
\_ how about you learn how to format your posts?
\_Don't you know? Only US troops do bad things.
\_ Just think, lots of men, lots of hormones, and no gf/wife. It's
just a norm in the military. On a side note, the Japs took care
of this problem by providing Comfort Women-- legalizing
prostitution in military barracks. Goals: increase troop
morale, increase enrollment (hey if you're young and still
virgin here is your chance to get laid), and decrease $$$
flowing out of the military. It's a brilliant plan.
\_ the concept may have been right, but the implementation
was sexual slavery, rape, murder, etc. lots of hits on
comfort women including this one:
http://online.sfsu.edu/~soh/comfortwomen.html
\_ I don't think there is very much prostitution in Iraq. There
is quite a bit of fraternization though.

8/29 Where there are US troops, there is prostitution. Are there any
reliable media reports on the prostitution situation in Iraq?
\_ oh no! call the moral police!
\_ how about take out the "US" in there. I mean seriously,
my dad was stationed next to Pakistani troops for while,
they went out whoring and drinking as much as the next guy.
goddamit i got trolled! you win.
\_ Summary: US BAD! NON-US GOOD!
\_ how about you learn how to format your posts?
\_ Don't you know? Only US troops do bad things.
\_ Just think, lots of men, lots of hormones, and no gf/wife. It's
just a norm in the military. On a side note, the Japs took care
of this problem by providing Comfort Women-- legalizing
prostitution in military barracks. Goals: increase troop
morale, increase enrollment (hey if you're young and still
virgin here is your chance to get laid), and decrease $$$
flowing out of the military. It's a brilliant plan.
\_ the concept may have been right, but the implementation
was sexual slavery, rape, murder, etc. lots of hits on
comfort women including this one:
http://online.sfsu.edu/~soh/comfortwomen.html
\_ The Japanese took care of the situation by having their troops
rape half of the Eastern hemisphere.
\_ Yep US only gets in trouble if they rape <14yo girls in Japan.
They actually kick the guys out of the army. oooo. tough one.
\_ Better than the UN where the very guys who are sent over to
protect women from human rights abuses end up buying, selling,
pimping, using, and raping them.
\_ And one day, Japan will grow some balls and apologize outright
for all the war crimes it perpertrated. Spineless twats. -Jon
\_ I don't think there is very much prostitution in Iraq. There
is quite a bit of fraternization though.
\_ Minimal prostitution in Iraq? Your source of info?
\_ Well, you wouldn't really want to pay money to have sex
with a potato sack, would you? -John

8/2 no one shall violate our soldier's right of pursuit of Happieness
(i.e. raping underage Japanese girls)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/3118497.stm
\_ Actually, handing all accused soldiers over to the japanese
legal system before formal indictment is asking for trouble.
You think they'd get anything even resembling a fair trial?

6/9 To whomever was asking about work permits in Europe--it varies from
country to country, and I have a Swiss passport. Depending on where/
for whom you work, it can be very easy. -John
\_ John, did your passport stem from marriage, ancestry, or place
of birth? Does the US recognize dual citizenship for EU countries
or did you have to pretend to renounce? I'm curious to see how
this differs from the process of getting a Japanese passport.
--erikred

5/19 Here's one vote for extermination of the human race. Its obvious
that we just can't live up to the standards set by the CSUA motd,
so we're better off with universal suicide. Who knows, maybe
evolution will produce an intelligent race less concerned with
narcissism and self-aggrandizement.
\_ Tch, tch... Where were you during the nuke war fantasies of the
early 80's? Po' chile, missed out on it?
\_ They weren't fantasies. The world was almost destroyed several
times from the mid 60's until The Wall fell.
\_ Compare and contrast that to Sodans almost getting laid.
\_ Another time coming up with the threats from North Korea.
\_ NK? Piffle. That's not world destruction. At worst,
they'll hit SK or Japan once or twice. Their odds of
hitting SD/LA/SF are about zero given that they've never
tested anything with that range and don't claim it. After
the maybe nuke Japan/SK, we launch and wipe them off the
planet, everyone sheds a tear, makes a pretty speech at
the UN, life goes on for the other 6+ billion people.

2/20 Do BNO passport holders need a visa to visit Japan for short-term? The
web site only says British passport holders are exempted. I tried
called the Consulate but it's closed. Thanks. (Yeah I can wait till
tomorrow.)
\_ yes.
\_ BNO officially means second class. It is all insult no benefit.
\_ Just curious, what is "BNO"?
\_ British National Overseas
\_ Thanks.
\_ I called the consulate: (415) 777-3533. The answer is yes.

1/21 Japan can play all the Orwellian games they want, but just as
2 + 2 = 4, they will always be a "former enemy":
http://nytimes.com/2003/01/21/international/21CND_JAPA.html
\_ It's the US's fault for nuking them and starting hostilities.
\_ ??? What percent of the UN budget do the former Nazis and
Mussolini-ists pay? Fair's fair.

10/7 Reviews of Miyazaki's "Spirited Away"? I usual avoid dubbed versions
of Miyasaki's work, but I haven't gotten a hold of the original
japanese version with either english or chinese subtitles yet. Is
it worth watching this dubbed version? Thanks.
\_ I liked the dubbed version better -pld
\_ It was a surreal trip. I didn't mind the dubbing so much. If you
like his stuff, I'd watch this ... especially on weed!
\_ the kabuki is playing the non dubbed version
\_ Even dubbed it's a must see. Better than PM not as classic as
MNT or NPoV or CiS but very very good.
\_ The review on http://sfgate.com says it's the Disney-dubbed version
\_ Even dubbed it's a must see. Better than Mononoke not as classic as
Totoro or NPoV(??Nausicaa = NVoW) or Laputa but very very good.
\_ WTF? Fucking anime geeks... sheesh.
\_ that movie took two hours of my life, and I want them back.
\_ the best anime ever was something to do with anime porn and 3
witches.

9/30 Do people think more naturally in infix notation, prefix or postfix?
\_ I don't know about people, but I know 8 out of 10 cows prefer
prefix notation.
\_ I guess it might depend on which language you speak. Proabaly
infix for Chinese and English speakers, and postfix for Japanese
speakers. -- yuen
\_ true. but what if you were designing your own language
(programming) and want to make it accessible to most.
\_ To most people, most people likely to program anyway, most
people you want to teach programing, what? what? WHAT?!
\_ I guess it'd still depend on the mother tongue the person
speaks. Now people with both English and Japanese, or both
Chinese and Japanese, as their native languages will be good
candidates for such a study. -- yuen

9/19 What goods (US) are expensive and hard to find in Japan? Other than
perhaps golf and alcohol. I'm looking for gift giving ideas. Thanks.
\_ http://prestonscandy.com
\_ Cars. They like big powerful American cars, esp. Lincoln's and
Cadillac's. They also like 60's muscle cars and harley davidson's.
\_ Quality beef.
\_ How can you beat Kobe beef?
\_ *shake head* how about See's candies? last i recall,
\_ http://prestonscandy.com
can't find it there, and it's distinctly american.
i've seen ppl give beef jerky. or whatever is native
to ur own country will be appreciated based on my past
experiences. Cal paraphenelia?
\_ Actually, a coworker of mine was in Japan a few months ago
and said he saw See's candies in the airport for like $35/box.
\_ we took See's candies to Japan on our biz trip and found out
later that they were sick of getting them. Maybe try Godiva's
instead.
\_ You mean Warren Buffett won't be making any more money!?!
\_ there are already a few japanese brands of beef jerky. tengu.
\_ Will it give you teleportitis? Or teleport control?
\_ us pr0n?
\_ As if they don't have enough of their own.
\_ but it's all censored.
\_ and is illegal to bring into the country if uncensored
\_ How about rated R movies like those "strong sexual
content" ones on Showtime?
\_ But they love to see hot white chicks in action, just like
we love to see hot Asian chicks.
\_ Who's "we"?
\_ Apples. The common American apple. I have it on *very* good
authority that apples are a rare and special delicacy in Japan.
Each one raised carefully by hand, a work of art. And if you dare
disagree about the price of apples in Japan I'm going to flip a huge
ass table and run off and mope in the stairwell.
\_ Apples are expensive because US apples are prohibited from
import. So if you declare them, they will be confiscated.
You could always try smuggling them in.
\_ Fruits in general are expensive in Japan,
\_ Bring a Michael Jordan signed basketball, or some Native
American craft.
\_ Along this vein, how about Dodgers and other sports crap? I'm
sure they have it there, but it's probably heavily marked up.
\_ Better off with Seattle Mariners. Ichiro is better known out
there.
\_ Or maybe baseball/etc sports cards? Just guessing.
\_ Baseball is the #2 sport there, after sumo. But I don't know
if American baseball stars are popular there.
\_ Do they have sports cards for their own athletes or is this
an American thing? (having cards I mean)
\_ Ivory Tusks or Sea Turtle shells. Saw it on the news.
\_ Blonde women.
\_ Yermom... oh wait, she's cheap and easy to find in Japan.

9/11 H0t A41@n chik wants YOU!
\_ D00D U N33D 4 B373R 5P3111NG CH3CK3R! 175 5P3113D H07
4ZN CH1K! not H0t A41@N chik.
http://www.craigslist.org/sfo/eby/w4m/5642479.html
\_ H0t? Not really. http://profiles.yahoo.com/makikoinsf
\_ I don't know... that's pretty hot to me.
\_ Are foreign students from Japan able to write English like "if
things click"?
\_ yeah, me too, what the hell are your standards? And if
if you wonder why you are still single, well, stop.
\_ I'd qualify her as very cute, rather than hot
\_ agreed -2nd OP
\_ what's wrong with you people? she has almost no
female attributes. No hips, no tits. Relentlessly
average face and skeletal arms & legs. bah.
\_ That picture looks suspect, like it's a picture of some
model or something.
\_ How do you know that she's not a model?
\_ Fair enough.
\_ better looking than most japanese women.
\_ Looks pretty hot to me. But are foreign students from Japan able
to write informal English like "if things click"? Maybe it's a
hoax.
\_ They can if they have coaching. My ex teaches Japanese right
now and she certainly could have taught them such slang.
\_ Too scrawny. How do you know that's really her?
\_ Just curious, is the same person posting all of the
craigslist personals?
\_ It's a hoax. The photo is professional, scanned from some magazine
or taken from a web site. That's a new way of collecting email
addresses so that you get on some match making or personals
web site. Seriously. Do you think women that look like that
need to look for desperate, geeky guys on the internet?
\_ That's not a professional photo. If you've paid a so-called
professional photographer for pics with such mediocre quality,
then post your email and I'll get you the info for a *real*
professional friend of mine who takes *real* pictures. I was on
the high school year book staff and we took photos of similar
quality. You also don't know much about Japanese chicks....
\_ you are SUCH a total nerd. "I was on high school year book!"
tell us about your mathlete scores!!!!
\_ missing the point, duh. try again. don't make me send
your sorry ass back to english-for-engineers.
\_ I'm not positive, but I'm pretty sure that photo is a Japanese
model named Karou (sp?)... do a web search for some photos.
\_ You can really tell one skinny random chick from another based
on 1 photo on yahoo?
\_ be sure to give a full report later, private.
\_ here... you be the judge:
http://www.asianarray.com/local/model/Kaoru
\_ login & password please ;)
\_ not even close. do all asians look alike to you?
\_ Haha while all you losers were doubting her existence, I set up
a date already for Saturday night.
\_ be sure to give a full report later, Private.
\_ If he's still alive.
\_ OK stud, and you are?
\_ I'm laughing at you. I felt you should know that.
\_ Hi, I am hot Asian girl looking for cute guys to chat online
/tmp/ChatRoomRealityCheck.jpg -John
\_ I think I'm going to spew.

8/20 Anybody bought digital cams from Japan and bring them
back to US? a) How strict is the $400 custom limit
(what about for gifts and personal use)? b) Where can
I find a 100V to 110V converter? Thanks.
\_ a) not very strict. The custom doesn't know the price. Usually
they don't ask. If you're still afraid, put down something
like $450, and paid them maybe USD $6.00 (not sure about the
rate)
b) most models are also exported, and the power supply adapts
to most ranges. My Sony works all over the world.
The bigger question is how much Japanese you know. The
supplied software usually comes in Japanese and it may
appear as garbage characters by the computers and garbages
to you if you don't know Japanese.
\_ Customs is a joke. Don't worry about your declared value. Just
don't make bomb jokes or look foreign and you're ok to bring in
a few bombs, some anthrax in marked containers and a few kilos of
coke per trip.
\_ Someone deleted this question: what's the difference between 110v
and 120v? Some (usually electricians) refer to it as 120v, but most
simply call it 110v.
\- it is my opinion that stuff like clothes, electronics etc
wont be a problems. you might not want it in new packaging
and have the price tag on. booze, cigs and such are another
matter. i dont think you can really claim "i bought that
cognac on my last trip/at safeway". --psb

8/12 Someone mentioned domo-kun in an earlier post--would any CSUA'ers
in Japan be willing to pick up a domo-kun doll for me and ship it
to me? I'd like to give it to someone as a birthday present.
Neotoys, wizziwig & friends all don't have what I'm looking for,
and the NHK store doesn't ship outside Japan. -John
\_ ask keithyw
\_ I have seen these sold at Urban Outfitters of all places
\_ What's domo-kun? Is it a big hit like the Tamagotchi before?
\_ NHK mascot type thingy. Speaking of domo-kun:
http://drew.corrupt.net/think-of-the-domokun.jpg --Jon
\_ If you're in or around the east bay, there is a Ranch 99 with
an associated asian mall near the Richmond Costco. One of the
stores in the mall is a gift shop/greeting card type place that
carries many of the cute Japanese fad characters. Might be
worth a look. It's where I got the Kogepan that hangs off of
the rearview mirror in my car.
\_ I'm in Switzerland, which is sort of the crux of the
problem. NHK's site (http://www.domomode.com has exactly
what I am looking for (a ca. 20 cm plush toy) but as
I mentioned above, they don't ship out of Japan. -John

8/10 what is the second most wired country in the world? a
western european country, like France, or a tech-savvy
one like Japan? or neither?
\_ Korea and Finland are very high up there. -John
\_ Singapore, maybe?
\_ i think in order: US, Japan, Hong Kong.
\_ I'd say, Japan, Hong Kong, US....
\_ Wired? Wired with what? Phones, cable, dsl, what? What does
'most' mean? Most feet of cable, most people, largest percentage
of population, what?
\_ percentage of population, and wired for internet.
\_ there are charts and maps with this info everywhere... google it.
Wired Mag for ex, had something a while back.

5/1 The administration that favoured the a-bomb... was it the same
administration that favoured the Japanese internment? Why didn't
they do the same for German descendents?
\_ It's a lot easier to identify Japanese descendents.
\_ Plus they were more concentrated in certain regions, I guess.
\_ Germans are white. Japanese are not. Germans had melted in to
the general population. Japanese had not. Germans were like
everyone else. Japanese were not. And as a further emotional
issue, the Germans hadn't launched a sneak attack on America. The
Japanese did. Note I'm not making any judgements in either
direction. I do have opinions on this topic but I'm not posting
them. I'm only answering the question as I see it with as little
bias as possible. I think it's a good question.
\_ "All men are created equal" and all other good stuff in the
Constitution is meant for White European descent only from the
very beginning of American history. Without it, we wouldn't able
to justify to establish our nation at other peoples' land.
This notion of Constitution also applied to men of other race
didn't really come into play until the middle of 1960's.
Thus, apply the same human right standard on Japanese descent
doesn't really exist at the time. On the other hand, it cuts
both ways. Because of American's don't really care much about
none-white's human right, all the monstrous act by the Japanese
toward the 20 million Chinese was consider a lesser crime than
than the 6 million white Jews Nazi killed, and therefore,
they were pretty much forgiven. In the end, I actually think
Japanese as a whole came out ahead due to this racial prejudice.

4/28 This is not a troll, I'm just curious. If Germany still has a pretty
strong Nazi presence (esp from E Germany where unemployment is high
and education is low), how come Japan doesn't seem to have their
Imperialistic equivalence?
\_ HELLO!!!! What the hell are you thinking? There is a much
stronger imperialistic presence in Japan than those of Germany.
Instead of being executed like their German counter part, those who
commit crime against humanities are being WORSHIPPED by many
the top leaders in Japan. Prime Minister of Japan just visited
the Shrine dedicated to those "war heros" of WW2. Even today,
Japanese Text book does not admit that whatever they did was
"aggression."
The relationship between Imperial Japan and American is a lot more
closer than you think. Prior to Pearl Harbor, it's AMERICAN who
supplies scrap iron, petroleums and other war material to Japan
while Japanese Imperial Army was ravaging throughout the Northen/
North Eastern China. After Japanese Surroundered, American decided
to leverage Japan to counter the raise of Communist power in China.
By doing so, American pratically forgave Japan and its crime against
China and the rest of the Asia. This policy is enforced until this
day. Consider Japan never even admit that they were at fault at
first place, consider that Japan has killed more than 20 million
Chinese during the war, which they shows no remorse nor slight
hint of apologistic attitude toward it. This would only fuel the
ultra-nationalist sentiment in the mainland China itself.
American, whose policy has been closely aligned with Japan both
before and after WW2, who has been extremely lenient toward the
crime which Japan committed, is being logically viewed as the
imperialist corporate today. -kngharv
\_ so where are the pro-Japanese pro-Imperial dominance
and pro-expansionist/pro-war protests?
\_ They happened on a fairly regular basis while I was
there and were reported in the news. We just
don't hear about it here. Awhile ago, a far right
group assassinated the mayor of Nagasaki for being too
critical of Japan's past conduct, among other things.
-- ulysses
\_ You can also read Chinese, Hong Kong, Taiwan or Korean
news media if you want to keep up with these. They
pay much more attention to Imperial-Japanese-related
events than the US media does.
\_ The Japanese are our friends. They like golf. We
like golf. The Japanese are our friends. I'll bet
Bin Laden doesn't play golf.
\_ Hey what'd you expect? After a good bit of moral blindness as
seen below on this thread, suddenly the US has something to
apologise for and Japan is all victims. Weird. Go figure. Cal.
\_ Ever see all the war memorials dedicated to their veterans? Ever
see them apologize? War veterans who got away passed into ranks of
politicians. They'll never apologize for Bataan, just as much as
the U.S. will never apologize for Hiroshima. [motd formatd]
\_ The US has nothing to apologize for. The Japanese do.
\_ you're an idiot.
\_ Uh yeah you sure showed me! When did they start letting
third graders into Cal? Get off your dad's computer.
\_ it was a fucking nuclear bomb you idiot. your post
didn't warrant an explanation.
\_ Yes, it was a very high yield radiation bomb. And?
So what? Maybe you'd prefer the higher death tolls
on *both* sides from a conventional invasion? Yes,
it does warrant a real reply. You're
intellectually weak. "It was a nuclear bomb" is
not an answer to anything. I await your ignorant
reply, although I honestly expect you'll either
censor the whole thing or just insult me again. I
again say the US has *nothing* to be sorry for and
Japan has *much* to be sorry for and has yet to come
to grips with the crimes they committed in the 30s
and 40s.
\_ Hiroshima and Nagasaki were civilian targets.
1/4M civilians were killed in violation of the
Geneva convention. This is something we should
regret, even if Japan as a country deserved it.
Would you nuke Baghdad to teach Hussein a
lesson? -!OP
\_ Imperial Japan was going to use 'civilians'
in the defense of the islands from US
invasion. Due to excessive propaganda, this
was mostly voluntary. There were no civilians
on the islands at the time.
\_ even if this is true, which i'm not
entirely convinced of, how can you
rationalize the second bomb?
\_ They hadn't surrendered yet. The
situation hadn't changed.
\_ This wasn't about 'teaching them a lesson'.
You're again being intellectually dishonest.
It was about ending the war asap with as few
deaths on both sides as possible and you know
it. You're now veering into troll territory.
And no I don't favor nuking Baghdad at this
time but if doing so would save more lives
than not doing so I would be in favor.
\_ *I'm* veering into troll territory?
Japan was already trying to surrender
\_ Please explain how one 'tries' to
surrender and provide URL.
\_ By negotiating via a third party.
http://www.lehman.cuny.edu/litstudies/programs/MotionWeb/webassign/gar.html
\_ I read this, and although
it suggests that the japanese
were considering surrender, I
did not see conclusive evidence
that they had started negotiating.
Try Again.
\_ I just got done reading the whole
thing also. I also didn't see
where it says anything like you
claim it does. Ya know, when you
post a URL you better make sure it
says what you think it says. Some
of us actually read entire URLs.
when we nuked them. If we were really
trying to save civilian lives, we would
have accepted their terms. It is pretty
\_ You mean the terms where we just go
away and they get to keep their evil
slave ridden raping imperial empire?
The one soaking in the blood of innocent
Chinese? Even the Nazis in Nanking
were shocked by what the Japanese did.
\_ Any URL on "the Nazis in Nanking were
shocked ..." part? Thanks. --- yuen
\_ History Channel. The Nazis were
running a medical facility/camp in
one part of the city. The Nazi Dr
running the place wrote in his
personal diaries and letters home
how sickening it was and also
took action to keep the Japanese
from entering his 'sanctuary'. I
could find the name with some
research if this isn't enough for
you.
clear we were positioning ourselves for
post-WWII (cold war) advantage, as well
as ensuring that the Emperor would never
\_ Of course we didn't want the Emperor
in place, duh. What's wrong with that?
You make it sound like the Emperor was
a good thing in some bizarre way.
rise to power again. In hindsight, they
were probably both good reasons, but it
was by no means clear at the time.
\_ It was quite clear at the time. Read
a history book published outside Japan.
Nonetheless, the massacre of hundreds of
thousand of innocents should be dismissed
so lightly.
\_ It wasn't a massacre. It was the
strategic killing of hundreds of
thousands (I'll grant those who died
later from radiation, etc). I don't
dismiss it lightly. I don't dismiss it
all. It was a very tough call and we
did the right thing and have nothing
to be sorry about morally. The Japanese
have lots to be sorry about morally and
have yet to own up to 99% of it. Please
don't put words in my mouth. I take
the death of hundreds of thousands very
very seriously which is why I don't
make the trivial "nuke = bad" equation.
The dead don't care how they died. BTW,
are you aware of the fire bombing we did
in Germany? We targetted civilian areas
under the principle that civilians are
a strategic resource bc they're the ones
who build the hardware and supply the
food, clothing, fuel, etc, that keeps
the military running. Do you feel the
same about the 'depopulation' bombing
we did as the two nukes in Japan?
Not to mention, the Dresden bombing killed around _/
200,000 people which is more than twice the number
of dead from Hiroshima. But since it wasn't nuclear
weapons no one cares.
\_ Japanese aggression passed into the economic sector.
Unfortunately, it was just as unsuccessful there. Witness the
current state of their economy.
\_ Suckers got cleaned out on the golf course thing.
\_ They do.
\_ Russia recently seems to have a strong neo-Nazi presence in form of
"skinheads" in the large cities. Who'd think that would ever
happen?
\_ One of the few good things the communists did was suppress all
forms of blatant racism although they did keep track of ethnic
demographics. Officially they had 15 groups.
\_ Except state-sponsored racism, of course. Ever tried to get
admitted to a good Soviet university as a Jew?
\_ Well yeah sure they still mistreated Jews but Jews run
the world and oppress everyone they encounter so there's
no such thing as racism against Jews. They're just trying
to restore balance betwee the Jews and those they oppress,
so it's ok.
\_ Sort of like how African Americans can't be racist
because they're an historically oppressed minority?
\_ The Communists also broke the back of religion in
Russia and replaced it with rationalism, which is
no small feat.
\_ Not really. Orthodox Christianity is making a comeback
in a major way in Russia. You can't force people into
progress against their wills.
\_ And the Catholic Church is making a big move into
Orthodox territory too. As far as progess goes, I
don't consider all religion bad or all atheism good.
I'm an atheiest but I do understand how religion and
belief in a higher power can help an otherwise broken
people get through one more day without resorting to
the bottle or other killers. There's a good reason
for the insanely high alcohol related death rates in
Russia/Former Soviet States.
\_ is religion good for anything else?
\_ IMO, not really. I don't believe it should be
used to keep people down but people who are
already down are often better off with it than
without it. --atheist
\_ I read a few months ago that the Cathonic the
Orthodox Churches were in talks towards
re-unification.

3/28 "U.S. Airman Gets 32 Months for Okinawa Rape"
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=578&u=/nm/20020328/ts_nm/japan_usa_trial_dc
What the hell? Only 32 months for rape? What kind of justice is that?
And the defense still considers filing an appeal? --- American guy
\_ Duh, there's *always* an appeal to *every* case in both civil and
criminal court. How ignorant can you be? And you weren't there so
you've got no idea what went down in court. Maybe 32 months was
an outrageous sentence given the facts of the case which we don't
have here on the motd.
\_ Supposed average for rape in Japan in 3-5 years.
\_ It sounds like he met a hooker in a bar and didn't pay her enough
so she cried rape. The real injustice is that this was ever taken
seriously enough to go to trial.
\_ He was raping for his country.
\_ Ah! That's where our tax dollars go ;-)
\_ The justice department in Okinawa was under heavy US pressure.
Remind you that Okinawa was an independent nation which has
thousands years of history before Japan absorb it in 1845.
After WW2, US want to form a blocade toward Russia and Communist
China, thus, allow Japan to keep what was then Ryukyu (which
was traditionally Chinese friendly).
Japanese, for most part, still don't really care about people
in Okinawans, treat them as some sort of colonial subject. This
is one of the reason why Japan allow bulk of US troops in Okinawa
instead of Japanese mainland; and Japanese certainlly won't piss
off US for these colonial subjects.
Poor Okiwanans, victim fo two imperial powers.
If US was protecting its subject when its subject was
raping 12 years old back in 1995, it will certainly protect its
subject when the crime is much less severe, like this one.
\_ She was asking for it.

3/26 With regards to reparations, anyone who receives $$$ should be stripped
of citizenship and forced to return to the country of most likely
origin. These people have benefitted from coming here, despite the
trials of their ancestors. If they take the money then they need
to go back where they would've been as a condition. --dim
\_ i learned everything i know about african history from
the iron maiden album "number of the beast," so i disagree.
\_ Did we send those Japenese-Americans who were paid reparations
back to Japan?
\_ The legal aspects of this case are vastly different. The
reparations was compensation for violation of their 3rd
amendment rights. These people were FULL CITIZENS at the
time thier constitutional rights were abriged. They had
a legitmate legal claim to be compensated for illegal
search and seizure of thier property and possessions
without due process.
In the case of those asking for reparations for slavery,
the plantifs have no case since they were not guarenteed
any rights until the passage of the 13th amendment. (By
the 3/5ths compromise slaves counted as people for census
purposes but were not protected under the bill of rights).
The reparations for slavery have already been paid, in the
lives of the men and women who fought and died in the civil
war, in the passage of the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments
and in the end of segreation. That the original intent of
the founders (all men are created equal) is present in
modern america and is as prevasive nowhere else in the world
should be enough for anyone of any race. A handout cheapens
and renders impotent the Freedom and Liberty that has been
gained and defended. - !OP
\_ I'm undecided on the issue of reparations, but it's clearly
ridiculous to claim that slaves have no right to reparations
because slavery was legal at the time. Their claim is about
moral rights. -tom
\_ Moral rights? Property has no moral rights, no rights
period.
period. Yes slavery was a terrible thing, but it was
positive for any of those inititally brought
over... though you raise an interesting
point... I'd be curious to see the
statistics comparing the percentage of
people killed in, or travelling to, the US,
vs. the percentage killed in Africa during
a comparable time frame. And it is only
arguably positive for any ancestors when
you consider the conditions that most
legal when it happened. They have no claim to compensation
because the there was no crime committed. I think that
these people should get on with thier lives instead of
sitting around pretending to be perpetual victims and
childern of slaves. You are what you believe yourself
to be, if you think that you are a victim, you will be.
\_ There's no claim against a slave owner, who was
within the law. There may be a claim against the
government for enacting immoral laws. (The fact
that the government says it's legal doesn't absolve
it of its own moral responsibility). -tom
\_ Legal precident is that the just compensation
of the enactment of a immoral law is to repeal
the law in question. As the laws in question
have been repealed, there is no basis for this
suit.
\_ That's overly simplistic. It's not only
that the law was immoral, it's that it caused
damage, and a claim for damages certainly could
have merit. A claim for damage 150 years after
the fact, perhaps not. -tom
\_ [ comment about holocaust reparations being paided
dispite the holocaust being legal at the time time
inadvertently deleted, sorry ]
\_ Reparations paid by eurpoeans to other eurpoeans,
is not sufficient legal precident in the US.
I am talking about crimes commited in territory
where the Consitution is valid.
\_ Uhm, where does it say its a 3rd amendment issue?
\_ Internment was a 3rd amendment issue. JAs had a
legal claim. Slaves cannot make any legal claim
under the law as it existed when they were wronged.
\_ I misread the indenting. Nevermind. Makes sense.
\_ maybe. but that was different, it was wartime. wartime rules
are different than peacetime rules.
\_ yeah, fucking people over because it's wartime is somehow
a more outright offense then doing it peacetime. whatever.
\_ Yes, at least there was some rationale in WWII, however
cooked up, for locking up American citizens because
they were of Japanese ancestry. --Jon
and not the euro-boat-people. Think about if the
same things were committed today and you'll see some of
the flaws in your logic.
\_ There wasn't any rationale in any other cases? I'm
assuming that dim's ignorant original comment was
in regards to slavery? Are you trying to say that
there weren't countless "scientists" and philos-
ophers making justifications for why it was ok
to enslave brown people all around the globe? - rory
\_ Excuse me, but I think that if you think about it
you will find my comment enlightening. Has slavery
helped or hurt the people in question? --dim
\_ I have thought about it, and I never said your
post wasn't enlightening... It is enlightening
of the fact that you are ignorant and/or
racist. Are you really trying to argue that
slavery has had a net positive effect on
Africans brought to America? - rory
\_ It certainly was a net positive for their
descendants (they live in a prosperous society
vs whatever african shithole they originally
came from), and it may have been a net positive
for some of them (in a sense that they would
have been executed as POWs in some tribal war
otherwise, or perhaps died of malaria).
\_ wow when did david horowitz get a CSUA account? - danh
\_ It's a net negative - hundreds of years
of slavery, crappy lives up till the
the Civil Rights movement. And it is
the black people themselves who
stood up, fought for their rights, and
made better lives for themselves.
Incredible to see rightwing fuckheads
talking out of the their arses and
trying to give credit to the slave
traders for what is good in the lives
of today's African Americans.
\_ Excuse me but the civil rights movement
was a Republican agenda item. You still
have sheet/hood wearing ex-KKK members in
Congress right *now*. Thanks for adding
your biased agenda driven bit of weak
historical revisionism to the motd.
\_ Yup, Abraham Lincoln was black.
\_ That Abe was a good man doesn't
negate the fact that it was a net
negative. As for standing up for
themselves, I am referring to the
Civil Rights movement, not during
the Civil War period.
\_ Oops, sorry.
\_ Are you kidding me?? It certainly *wasn't*
positive for any of those inititally
brought over... though you raise an
interesting point... I'd be curious to
see the statistics comparing the percentage
of people killed in, or travelling to, the
US, vs. the percentage killed in Africa
during a comparable time frame. And it is
only arguably positive for any ancestors
when you consider the conditions that most
blacks were living in for the larger part
of the last century and a half... and the
fact that I'm sure that almost all brought
over were perfectly content, and that most
tribal warfare was caused by colonizing
countries anyway.
\_ The evil Westerners made the poor
africans fight each other? What, they
have no free will? Do you have a source
on this last point? People often forget
that 'people of color' can be just as
nasty as the blackest (whitest?) western
imperialist pig-dog.
\_ This is always the stupidest argument
put forth.
\_ People also often forget that
European countries. If you
disagree, feel free to go
home.
before colonization, and subsequent
"development" by former colonizers,
Africa did not consist of formal
nation-states at all, but rather
loose tribal nations. These coexisted
in relative peace (compared to how
things are now). Now you tell me
what all this "tribal warfare" is
about... - rory
(Hint: details of the arbitrary
borders imposed on the continent,
and who gets to be the recipient
of all the western development
money.)
\_ Talk to the British and their Euro
allies about the fucked up borders
created in Africa to intentionally
cause chaos and worsen tribal
warfare. This was not an American
action. We were a bunch of total
world nobodies when this all went
down. The historical revisionism
on the motd is sickening. If you
can't make a point without the
outright *lying* then you don't
have a point and should go away
and shut the fuck up. Thank you.
\_ This whole subthread is
pointless. That US is better
than African nations is
besides the point. US is
also better than all the
European and Asian countries.
If you disagree, feel free to
go home.
\_ That argument assumes the slavers knew
that the slaves would be better off in
the new world. Since tens of thousands
died enroute and tens of thousands died
at the hands of their owners, this would
be a very poor point to make.
\_ We have benefited from them being here too. Should we therefore
go back to wherever we came from?
\_ Of course we have. That is why we are paying them. Then they
need to leave. --dim
\_ You shell out my $9m and I'm outta here! Be glad to go!
\_ To, say, Nigeria? Doubt it.
\_ have you any idea what $9m can buy in NIgeria???
\_ I'm off to the slums of eastern europe where my peoples
came from... *with* my $9m bucks! Gladly. As soon as
that money clears I'm soooo out of here.
\_ No, I think dim should go back to where s/he came from, but
dim's money stays here. That's more fair.
\_ I totally agree that reparations are impractical when both the
criminals and the victims are long dead. In the case of
Japanese-American internees, it made some sense since the
the reparations were paid to actual victims. Having said that,
it's kind of funny when you see people so ready to draw a
line between themselves and the crimes committed by their
ancestors, and in the very next breadth, they want to send
other people "home" because these people's ancestors came later
then their ancestors, seemingly saying that they have more
right to be here simply because their ancestors came earlier.
\_ I only want to send the people home who want the money, not
all of the "victims". Capiche? --dim
\_ First their "home" is here. Second, then those who
"benefited", the perpetrators/benefited should leave
unless they pay. but you can argue that is all of us in
some way, even those who just arrived yesterday. However
you a very confused if you argue that their
descendants are better off. You are mixing up your idea
"of going home" with reparations. You are missing the
big picture. If their ancestors were not exploited
and perhaps let to live/work/immigrate freely they
may have been the ones running the country today
\_ hahahhahahahhah! yeah right!
\_ michael jordan, oprah
and not the euro-boat-people. In any case, you cannot
put a condition onto people because Americans are free to
live where they want to. Think about if the same
things were committed today and you'll see some
of the flaws in your logic. It does not follow.
They are not related. That said, I agree reparations
are not going to work. The only thing possibly more
un-feasible is your plan!
\_ thank you...
\_ Even if both parties were alive, the claim would be on a poor
legal footing. They're seeking reparations for something that
was legal at the time. I suspect that such reparations would
be deemed unconstitutional on an ex-post-facto basis.
\_ Doesn't matter if it was "legal at the time".
\_ Of course it does, duh. Go look up the "ex post facto"
concept. Jesus Christ some people around here are so dumb.
\_ You can argue it but ex post facto does not matter
\_ It was legal to keep innocent men behind bars
but after they are freed, they still sue.
\_ WON'T SOMEBODY PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN????!!??!???
\_ I FEEL YOUR PAIN! I DID NOT HAVE SEX WITH THAT WOMAN! I DID
NOT INHALE! IT WAS NOT AN ASPIRIN FACTORY!
\_ CAN'T WE ALL JUST GET ALONG?!?
\_ IT TAKES A VILLAGE TO RAISE A CHILD!

3/26 What does "kimochi" or "kimuchi" in Japanese mean? Thx.
\_ it means the overall chi, or PMS, depending on who you are.
\_ I think it means a kind of pickle.
\_ I think it is the japanese spelling/pronunciation of korean
"kimchi" which are a kind of pickled cabbage/radish
\_ Wow. I think you're all joking but sometimes I'm not sure...
Anyway, "kimochi" means feelings, usu. meaning emotion. -- ulysses
\_ The female characters in Japanese adult videos say this phrase a
lot, and that's why I was wondering what it means.
\_ "kimochii" means "comfortable" or "feels good" depending on
the intensity of the utterance. --erikred
\_ "kimochi" = feelings, "ii" = good. "kimochi ii" = feels good
\_ I was going to make a remark about pornime, but I guess
it's been done for me. -geordan

2/7 Does "South Pole" have any special meaning in Japanese? There are so
many JAV with titles like "South Pole No. 2". Thx.
\_ "Pole at down south" I am no Japanese, but it seems quite obvious
to me.
\_ BTW do all the cultures and languages in the world use the same
convention that north is "up" and south is "down"? I know
English and Chinese do.
\_ no.
\_ But the Japanese characters for "South Pole" literally means
"south extreme". They don't refer to pole.
\_ Yup. Most of the sites I found by searching on "nankyoku"
were about Antarctica, not the South Pole in parcticular.
\_ What does JAV stand for? Japanese Animation somethin? Sounds
like it's worth knowing, i.e. chicks will dig it if I just throw
it into a conversation "randomly."
\_ Sorry, it's "Japanese Adult Video". It's also one of the
censoring levels in Japanese porn. You don't want to throw it
into a converstion with chicks.
\_ What are the other censoring levels?
\_ JAV has "checkerbox" covering genital areas. This is leagl
in Japan. THN is "thin matrix" censoring where the
checkerbox is less opaque. This is illegal in Japan. XXX
is uncensored and is also illegal in Japan.
\_ Perhaps the chicks YOU hang out with are too uptight.
Many chicks love porn!
\_ Many chicks star in porn. Imagine that. They're still
the minority.

12/15 If you're going to Japan, check out Shinjuku.
This is where the Yakuza hang out, or should I say in
Kabuki-Cho. Part of Shinjuku is a major business and government
sprawl, another is a massive shopping district, and tucked not
far from the train station is the infamous Kabuki-Cho red light
district. This is where you hear about those stereotypical
stories of Japanese bars, clubs and restaurants which do not
cater to foreigners, unless a business man personally invites one
inside. In some of the shadier zones, you get teen or even
college students handing out pamphlets to local strip clubs or
topless bars, often times badgering you to accompany them. Some
are nothing more than fronts for people interested in sex
activities. One guy approached me with a list of pictures from
his den saying things like, "5000-en for a blow job. 160-en for
1 hour fucking." Those guys pester me. Fuck the middle men. So
you walk down more streets or even the side streets and you'll
see women, of various ages but not older than mid-30's clinging
to walls, even themselves handing out pamphlets. These girls
from my experience are generally Chinese, imported from places
like Beijing. Some work for erotic massage parlors others are
probably waiting for the right cue word to let customers pass
into the backend alley love hotels. I remember distinctly this
young girl, must not have been older than 14 or 15 from China,
the area around her mouth covered with small red spots. She came
up to me in Japanese at first, but I replied in English to which
she responded in Chinese, and realized that she needed to try her
English, asking me, "massage 5000-en, use mouth and tongue." And
I wondered how she got those small, red spots....
\_ sounds like the livestocks in macau are better.

12/14 I'm trying to remember the title and artist of a couple of Japanese
songs that became hits in the US. I vaguely remember one was in
the 80s and another was even earlier. Anybody know? Supposedly
the two (I think it was two) songs were the only japanese songs that
was popular in the US. Thanks.
\_ Shonen Knife? Cibo Matto (not really 80's, not sure tho) -mice
\_Pizzacato Five.
\_ Pizzicato Five. But they weren't really popular in
the 80's.
\_ Sukiyaki? "do do re mi do la so". Although the Japanese lyrics
had nothing to do with food. -- yuen
\_ YES! that is it. I got the MP3. Sukiyaki by Kyu Sakamoto.
A song entirely in Japanese that became #1 in June 15, 1963.
Thank you. Getting answers to obscure questions on the motd is
the main reason why I keep coming back to the soda community. :)

11/14 Is United States is the only country in the world that advertises
"weight control" pet food? For pets that are too fat? You really
have to have lived in an improverished country to realize just how
absurdly rich this country is. And why so many people in the world
hate us for it.
\_ So you are saying envy is good and excusable? Maybe they should
get off their asses, and invest, and create business and wealth.
There is no such thing as absurdly rich.
\_ It's not about envy or jealously. You're making that up.
\_ Have you no sense of shame at all?
\_ The only thing it means is that Americans and their pets are
both fat.
\_ They probably have it in Japan too... and maybe France or UK.
\_ Ah yes. We should feel guilty for living in a country with enough
fucking FOOD. And those poor bastards who keep having 5 kids when they
can barely feed their own ignorant AIDS-ridden selves should hate us
because we live in a civilized society. I'm not ashamed to be living
above the level of animals.
\_ What a fucking asshole!
\_ you have never lived in an improverished country have you? Ever
wonder why they have so many children? Because one or two of
the kids will die. Also because children work and bring in
income. I'd seen first hand children whose only purpose is to
haul buckets of water up a hill because their shack has no
running water. They do that whole day everyday until they die
or, if they live, they can get a paying job. Paying job meaning
shining shoes or collecting scrap.
\_ If having more children really increase overall productivity,
how come those countries haven't solved famine after people
have had so many children?
\_ Look, being poor does not necessitate such a crappy life. There
are many other "poor" societies in history. These problems go
deeper than just poverty. It's a breakdown of civilization.
In some cases the religion makes them not even attempt to raise
their living standards; they say the worse they live now, the
better they'll have it in the afterlife. Look at how early
western societies behaved...most of them didn't have running
water either. Towns had a well in the middle.
\_ What religion is this? Cite a passage out of some holy
book instead of making shit up. You're almost as bad as
Jon Katz.
\_ In Islam, this (as in, RIGHT NOW, BEING ALIVE) life is not
as vivid or important as the next life, the afterlife.
\_ How about: "It is easier for a camel to go through the
eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the
Kingdom of God."
Or this: "They that will be rich fall into a tempatation
and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts...
for the love of money is the root of all evil:
O man of God, flee these things, and follow after
righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience,
meekness." The Bible is full of this stuff.
\_ The bible also extols us to work hard and not be lazy.
Yes, the bible want us to trust in the Lord rather
than trust in our money. The bible is not against
wealth but against greed, wastefulness, and money
obtained through improper means.
\_ If anyone bothers to read the Bible they would
quickly realize it is a awesome commentary
on human existence, it is packed full with
perfect wisdom, and a path to self-awareness.
It's the best book you could ever read.
\_ Read "All the trouble in the world", there is a chapter on famine.
\_ If we all donate our old PCs and Linux software and DSL hubs +
ethernet cards their standard of living will totally improve!!!

10/31 English-dubbed hentai sucks ass
\_ watching LA Blue Girl again?
\_ Trying to. The dub makes it almost like work.
\_ alien tentacles and pussy juice power. what more do you
need to understand?
\_ I don't think I need to expand upon the
superior quality of the orgasmic moaning in the
original Japanese...
\_ don't forget the rapid high-pitched intakes of breath
\_ Oh yeahh. That's the stuff.
\_ Does the main girl ever get any from a human? Those
tentacles must chafe
\_ Oh yes, YES. You don't really want someone as big as I am to
pull out, do you?
\_ Oh christ -- is the dubbing THAT bad?
\_ I noticed recently that my boss has the same shape hair as the
doctor in Oh Genki Clinic - nasty mixed methaphor, that.
\_ Forgive my ignorance, but what is hentai?
\_ japanese anime porn.
\_ hentai is the japanese word for "pervert" and has come to mean
the porn (usually extreme porn) subset of japanese anime
(still and animated)
\_ isn't anime originally a French word?

10/11 http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20011012/ts/attack_congress_3.html
I was hoping for a delay in this bill so that it wouldn't be passed
but those idiots somehow pushed the bill through. honestly now, see
ya. I'm quitting my job after nov 26 and i'm going to move to japan
permanently. the country is now a totalitarian entity and our
freedoms are gone. it was nice knowing all of you. if i can't find
a tech job, i'm going to become a teacher. either way, there's no
way i'm going to live in this country with this regime. it's going
to be far worse than mccarthyism.
[ reformatted ]
\_ blah blah blah, nothing is different. The exact same powers have
existed since before your birth. You're still living in the most
free country *ever* to exist on this planet but if you want to go
so badly no one is going to shed a bitter tear over it. If you're
serious you'd cancel your American citizenship and get Japanese
citizenship but oh wait, they won't want you.
\_ Does this give the FBI to read email without a warrant?
\_ that's a little bit extreme. I mean, the FBI gets the power
to tap phones, they've always had that power anyway... what's
else in the bill that is so bad?
\_ "Sen. Phil Gramm (news - bio - voting record), R-Texas, said that
if the worker relief measure went forward, he would try to attach
language to open 2,000 acres of Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife
Refuge to oil and gas drilling."
\_ Probably because the IRA hasn't ceased terrorism?
Gotta love the way our political system works.
\_ hopefully the House will stick by its guns and make sure the bill
gets an expiration date
\_ Lotta good that will do. The Brits passed a similar law
in 1971 with a sunset provision. Funny thing, it keeps
getting extended. The cops never want to give back your rights.
\_ Maybe because the IRA never ceases terrorism?
\_ Aerin Go Braugh!
\_ The bridge toll increases were all "temporary".
\_ As if Japan is so much better than here. Good luck gaijin,
you've watched one to many anime eps. and read megatokyo
far too often.
\_ Nah, he just wants to get high from puffing siren(sp?) gas.
\_ sarin
\_ Can you get high by inhaling anthrax spores?

9/11 So... is this worse than Pearl Harbor?
\_ If the casualties now is worse than Pearl Harbor and using the
nuke was justified back then, wouldn't it make sense to justify
using the nuke NOW?
\_ The attack on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was not a punitive
decision, it was to avoid an invasion of mainland Japan.
Furthermore, the biological effects of nuclear radiation were
poorly understood-- the H-bomb was thought to be just like a
large chemical explosive.
\_ I feel what you say but something on the order of "freeze all
assets" sounds better to me.
\_ Nuke what?
\_ The numbers are the same or worse and they were almost all
civilians rather than enlisted personnel. -ulysses
\_ but who do you attack when it isn't a country that's responsible?
\_ a country is harboring those responsible
\_ lets say it is Afghanistan. How in the world can
you attack except for maybe some retaliatory attacks.
China won't let us through. And neither will the former
Soviet Union. What do you do?
Soviet Union. What do you do? (actually, Pakistan may
let us through.
\_ do you think China or Russia (or nations formerly part of
the USSR) would be uncooperative with us about this?
\_ do you doubt it?
\_ I doubt any country will oppose military action
against Afghanistan.
\_ I'm naive, I guess, but I can't see any nation being
supportive or even desiring to appear supportive of
these terrorist attacks.
\_ Afghanistan (well, the Taliban) has already
denounced the attacks. Terrorists usually brag
about their attacks, not pretend that it wasn't
them.
\_ No. This attack is a bloody media event. Pearl Harbor was a
military strike planned to ensure Japanese control over the
Pacific Ocean and East Asia. With PH, the whole west coast
braced for a Japanese invasion and put tens of thousands in
concentration camps out of fear. The Trade Center attack will
hopefully not cause the same thing to happen.
\_ Any question about where I stood on the Israeli-Palestinian
question evaporated when thousands of Palestinians celebrated
on the streets today shouting "God is Great".

8/16 Anyone knows what the Japanese or English title of the Japanese TV
cartoon series ~20 years ago whose Cantonese title is "Doctor IQ"?
Thx.
\_ Dr. Slump (Arale-chan)
\_ Speaking of Asian cartoons, when I was in China I picked up
some VCD's of a chinese cartoon featuring policeman cats. I don't
speak chinese and there are no subtitles but they are hilarious
to watch simply because they are so surreal and so violent.
Anyone know what the name of this cartoon is?

6/9 Why are Japanese people SO fucked up?
\_ Well it's quite clear, this just goes to further prove the dangers
of knives and sharp implements. How many more children must die
before we do the responsible thing and ban knives?
\_ they are space aliens. look at their circulatory system; it's
not the same as the rest of the world, yes there are documents
to support this.
\_ lol. whilst teaching in Japan, I often had older students
tell me that Japanese people have longer intestines due to
the disproportionate amount of vegetables they ate. then
again, Japan's Ministry of Trade once denied Vuarnet access
to the J. ski market on the basis that Japanese snow is
different from snow anywhere else. --erikred
\_ with a pop. 60% that of the US, a significantly smaller landmass,
and one "incident" for every ten of ours, if the Japanese are
fucked up, we ought to have our entire country committed, and
quickly. otoh, if you're asking why this psycho went off like
he did, damn, I wish I could tell you. when they do go for it,
they really go for it. --erikred
\_ I thought the question was asking why one could purchase
used schoolgirl's underwear from vending machines. -geordan
\_ I looked for these in Tokyo, but I do not think they
exist. A lot of the "Japanese people are weird" shit
is made up and exaggerated. -John
\_ A Japanese girl told me this and many other stories
of bizarre goings on in Japan were true. She described
being molested herself on trains. She told me of
random people offering to buy her underwear. A
Chinese girl I know who spent 3 years in Japan also
told me of purchase attempts, vending machines, and
all sorts of stuff. I think everything we've heard is
probably true. But think what goes on in the US.
Peole are weird. --PeterM
\_ i've met alot of sheltered kids from the
suburbs in college who think all the crazy , fucked-up
stuff that goes on in America(with the exception of
what they can see on TV) is basically made up.
Alot of poeple like to think that crazy stuff is
made up to justify their own boring, trite little
lives.
\_ are there a proportionally large number of H4T 45N B4B3Z
that are japanese?
\_ sky? your thoughts?
\_ It's all about the Koreans, fools!
\_ Its all about the sailor suits fool!
\_ All that restraint and "hidden emotion" crap. It's got
to come out some how.
\_ Corruption from the evil Westerners.
\_ train frottage
\_ It's the lack of dentists there. They think crooked teeth are sexy.
\_ that's england. remember, they like starch and fluoridated
water there for food.
\_ no, it's Japan too
\_ japanese tend to have really crappy teeth.

4/30 Regarding Jet Li's wife: Hong Kong is a metric "country", yes. Yet
when people talk about body measurements, inches are used, unlike in
Japan where centimeters are used.
\_ in any case, it's obvious that "37" is an inch measure.
\_ Correct. And there's nothing unrealistic about 36A or 34B.
\_ Well, cup sizes weren't used to be measured back in those days
for some reason, so we didn't know what cup it was with the
37. This was changed in recent years.
\_ She might be a 37" chest but with a B cup that makes her
a barrel with bumps. Enjoy the thought. Maybe you'd like
a 44A, too? That's even bigger so it must be better,
right? Anyway, whatever her measurements on paper, I've
seen the pics and she's nothing special. I like the part
in her bio where she got wiped out in real estate so she
got married instead.
\_ Hmm, this is pretty big cup without pads to me:
http://www.brns.com/picts2/ninali6.jpg
\_ You're nuts. I'm on my third 36DD and all three
make her look tiny.
\_ But what waist measurements do your three 36DD's
have? I'd think the ratio is important too. My
ex- had 38D bust, but with a 30 waist that wasn't
very attractive.
\_ All three were 36/36/36. I like them like
poles with bumps.
\_ you're a lyin mofo
\_ You're lame. It's a joke, son.
Where is Cal finding their freshmen
these days? The morgue?
\_ San Jose.
\_ exactly. like some one can have 17 cm chest.

3/12 our navy sucks, they just bomb observers at a training , before they
killed japanese kids on a fishing boat.
\_ We need better strategerie, something Clinton and those lousy
democrats could never do.
\_ hey chickenshit, i'm glad you are safely behind your monitor
instead of cockpit cuz you can yak (and yank) all you want, but
unless you've donned the uniform and bled for something you
believe in, you ain't qualified to talk about squat.
\_ This is Colonel Leslie "Hap" Hapablap. If you don't
open that door I'll tear you up like a Kleenex at a snot
party! Sweet Enola Gay, Son! I'm going to come in there
and corpse you up -- corpse you up and mail you to mama!
\_ listen twink, I posted this and I expect better , way better
from the military. There is no honor when messing around in a
sub and handling weaponry capable of destroying countless lives.
I expect way better than myself in the military.
\_ We can only talk about things that we've done for ourselves?
what a stupid attitude. Time to stop talking about politics
and art, to start with.
\_ You are capable of talking about anything you like (ie: can)
however you come off sounding like an idiot when you pick
one or two unfortunate accidents and come up with witty
paint-them-with-a-wide-brush commentary like, "our navy
sucks". And who said the rest of us are unqualified by
that standard to discuss politics and art?
\_ well, the poster to whom I replied says you aren't
qualified to talk about politics and art (and various
other things)
\_ That's probably because the training has degraded. I read that
cadets can now wear tennis shoes instead of boots during hiking
training.
\_ that's cuz they started using Microsoft NT in 1998. Or that's just
a sign of the things to come, who knows.
\_ yvan eht nioj
\_ hey, nice song

9/21 The Czech Republic is not a third world nation. It is a
developing nation with $11700 per capita GDP, growth rate of -0.5%
(1999), and an external debt of 24.3 billion. USA's per capita
GDP is $33900. Malaysia's per capita GDP is $10700.
international no-car day! see http://www.carbusters.ecn.cz
\_ *.cz? Like they'd miss their cars for a day in the Czech republic.
I'd like to see something like International Fix Your Fucked Up
Third World Country Day coming from a place like that instead.
\_ Do you know your geography? The Czech republic is a modern
European nation. Just because it's considered Eastern Europe
doesn't mean that it's a Third World country.
\_ It's not a third world country. It's just a poor,
decrepit ex-Soviet-bloc nation suffering from 40+ years
of commie mismanagement. Otherwise, quite nice. -John
\_ What's the definition of third world then? I thought
"thrid world" is the PC term to describe poor countries.
\_ "First" or "Old" World = Europe. Don't forget that
Bohemia/western Czechoslovakia/Czech republic has
historically been a political and cultural center.
"New" World = Americas. "Third" World was some
mid-20th-century play on that to describe all
the second-rate backwaters discovered afterwards
with economic problems. -John
\_ % webster "first world"
[deletia]
Etymology: after third world
Date: 1967
: the highly developed industrialized nations
often considered the westernized countries of
the world
apart from getting the order of usage wrong (i.e.
third world -> first world rather than the other
way around) and being ignorantly eurocentric,
you're correct.
\_ then it doesn't sound like he has a problem with geography,
does it? it's more of an economics deficiency he has.
\_ No deficiency. Have you seen it? I think you need to
check on what the word "modern" means. CZ is a third
world country. Just because they're vaguely white doesn't
make it a modern western nation. They're little different
from any South American banana republic. It isn't just
blacks, hispanics and other non-whites that live in the
Third World. Thank you both for trying though.
\_ Have you ever travelled outside the Bay Area? -John
\_ Nobody noticed. Some cities had even worse traffic. Barely
anyone even knew it was happening until they heard on the news
what a flop it was this evening. -John
\_ Cars are here to stay (at least until transporters become
generally available).
\_ Chech know a thing or two about mechanical engineering and cars.
Pop quiz: which Western car compay buy out entire Tatra design team,
why they did it and what they are working on now?
As far as being 'vaguely' white which I take as they don't quite
fit a canonical definition of white, how to do explain
disproporationate representation of Czech chicks among the ranks
of 'supermodels'? -muchandr
\_ Volkswagen, right? They bought Skoda too. -John
\_ Volkswagen is a joke. In fact all european cars are jokes.
The only car manufacturers that matter are American and
Japanese. With Japanese you get quality, with American you
get power. - Proud owner of a 260 HP Lincoln that routinely
smokes the finest that Europe has to offer.
\_ that proves they are 'vaguely'! Per the current fashion trend
\_ When was the last time you bought a Czech car? I don't see
many trambant dealers around.
\_ Moron. Trabants were East German and they're a massive
cult object (like VW bugs.) Tatra were/are a Russian truck
design bureau. And Skoda (Czech) is about as big as
Saturn in the US. -John
\_ Czech supermodels are hot and slutty.

9/21 international no-car day! see http://www.carbusters.ecn.cz
\_ *.cz? Like they'd miss their cars for a day in the Czech republic.
I'd like to see something like International Fix Your Fucked Up
Third World Country Day coming from a place like that instead.
\_ Do you know your geography? The Czech republic is a modern
European nation. Just because it's considered Eastern Europe
doesn't mean that it's a Third World country.
\_ It's not a third world country. It's just a poor,
decrepit ex-Soviet-bloc nation suffering from 40+ years
of commie mismanagement. Otherwise, quite nice. -John
\_ What's the definition of third world then? I thought
"thrid world" is the PC term to describe poor countries.
\_ "First" or "Old" World = Europe. Don't forget that
Bohemia/western Czechoslovakia/Czech republic has
historically been a political and cultural center.
"New" World = Americas. "Third" World was some
\_ Will this finally make the LINUX! RIDE BIKE! people happy?
\_ no but it will make lotus notes save the universe.
mid-20th-century play on that to describe all
the second-rate backwaters discovered afterwards
with economic problems. -John
\_ % webster "first world"
[deletia]
Etymology: after third world
Date: 1967
: the highly developed industrialized nations
often considered the westernized countries of
the world
apart from getting the order of usage wrong (i.e.
third world -> first world rather than the other
way around) and being ignorantly eurocentric,
you're correct.
\_ then it doesn't sound like he has a problem with geography,
does it? it's more of an economics deficiency he has.
\_ No deficiency. Have you seen it? I think you need to
check on what the word "modern" means. CZ is a third
world country. Just because they're vaguely white doesn't
make it a modern western nation. They're little different
from any South American banana republic. It isn't just
blacks, hispanics and other non-whites that live in the
Third World. Thank you both for trying though.
\_ Have you ever travelled outside the Bay Area? -John
\_ Nobody noticed. Some cities had even worse traffic. Barely
anyone even knew it was happening until they heard on the news
what a flop it was this evening. -John
\_ Cars are here to stay (at least until transporters become
generally available).
\_ Chech know a thing or two about mechanical engineering and cars.
Pop quiz: which Western car compay buy out entire Tatra design team,
why they did it and what they are working on now?
As far as being 'vaguely' white which I take as they don't quite
fit a canonical definition of white, how to do explain
disproporationate representation of Czech chicks among the ranks
of 'supermodels'? -muchandr
\_ Volkswagen, right? They bought Skoda too. -John
\_ Volkswagen is a joke. In fact all european cars are jokes.
The only car manufacturers that matter are American and
Japanese. With Japanese you get quality, with American you
get power. - Proud owner of a 260 HP Lincoln that routinely
smokes the finest that Europe has to offer.
\_ that proves they are 'vaguely'! Per the current fashion trend
\_ When was the last time you bought a Czech car? I don't see
many trambant dealers around.
\_ Moron. Trabants were East German and they're a massive
cult object (like VW bugs.) Tatra were/are a Russian truck
design bureau. And Skoda (Czech) is about as big as
Saturn in the US. -John

8/7 http://lumine.net/engrish
\_ biology-- engrish is sexy in Japan. A proper Engrish will open
door to Japanese Chicks. A poor Engrish will close doors on you.
\_ Hmm, I wonder if there's a similar web site in Japan making fun
of people like me who try to learn Japanese.
\_ Learning japanese so you can watch the import anime
\_ cunt
without waiting for the fansubs are you?
\_ This sounds like jj.

4/24 Anybody have a Japanese garden in in their house? I'm thinking of
adding one. I figured out where to get the Japanese maples and
bamboos but I can't seem to find a place where they sell the little
tower thing and the small bridges, etc. I'm doing this myself, not
going to a landscape company. Thanks.
\_ There's a store on Piedmont Avenue that has all kinds of crap like
that. -tom
\_ can you be more specific? if you don't know the name what is
the cross street on piedmont? Thanks.
\_ south of 40th, near Cato's Ale House.
(what idiot changed "on Piedmont Avenue" to "in Berkeley"
above?) -tom
\_ Note: Bamboo is not particularly 'Japanese'. The variety found in
Hawaii is much the same as in Japan. -mtbb.
\_ Not to mention it is generally used in the singular form.
\_ You probably mean it is an aggregate noun. However,
this person's usage may be correct if he is referring to
a plurality of types of bamboo.
\_ By the way, if you plan to plant bamboo READ UP ON IT FIRST.
Bamboo is a beast that will take over your garden, wreck your
driveway, etc. And getting rid of it after that stage is
a serious pain in the ass cause it is all one giant plant.
You really need to build a thick concrete retaining structure
in the ground before you plant the stuff. Otherwise if you are
living in the same place 5 years down the line you will curse
the day you planted the stuff.
\_ ditto for strawberries.. but they tend to be tastier.
\_ I planted dandelions. Much easier to maintain.

9/4 Why is it that while using trn to try to read Japanese sites
results in single byte garbage, but accessing say, Taiwanese sites
results in double-byte (but still garbage) characters being
displayed. I want to read the Japanese sites in particular, and
to a lesser extent, the Taiwanese sites. Modifying the LANG variable
doesn't seem to effect it at all. -Hopeless.
\_ Funny, I wasn't aware that trn let you browse "sites". I thought
it was a newsreader.
\_ Pardon my dwindling English skills.
You don't say what terminal you are using, or whether you know
you have it set up right, or whether you even know whether you
have compatible fonts installed on your system. I'm assuming "no"
to all of the above issues.
\_
\_ I'm using xterm, csh. I beleive I have the LANG variable set
correctly. And, yes, I have planety of compatible fonts
running on my system. Just hit 'Ctrl-Space' on my keyboard
and I'm typing away in Japanese --> ÆüËÜ¸ì
Although, it comes out as junk in this termnial. -hopeless.
\_ It's hopeless. Wipe your system, install 95 and play
minesweeper.

1/27 I just turned on the radio to KCBS and I heard a sentense which
apparently is the end of a piece of news: "Pluto might not be a
planet, but it has been for a lot of time." What's going on? Is
there some new space discovery that shows that Pluto is not a
planet? Thx. -- yuen
\_ http://www.cnn.com/TECH/space/9901/20/puny.pluto
\_ It's all poltics. Disney didn't pay off the right astronomers.

2/23 contract work at lbl. General coding on Linux/Sparc SMP. if
you're interested, contact jon@CSUA.Berkeley.EDU.
\_ Pathetic, stupid, whining by non-citizen-foreign-fuck who is lucky
to be allowed to come within 200 miles of the coast of this great
nation, much less be allowed to live in it has been deleted because
it turns my patriotic stomach. You sniveling stupid fuck, GO HOME!
How dare you have the nerve to bitch about *anything* in this country?
Who the fuck do you think you are? You have no rights. If our fine
government decided to stick your foreign spying ass into prison with
out due process or just cause for the rest of your stinking, worthless
miserable, whining life, I couldn't be happier. Next you'll be crying
that we're a bunch of racists for not letting you vote or run for
political office. Well, fuck you, go home foreign idiot fuck, you're
not welcome here.
- descendant of a non-citizen foreign fuck
\_ Tell me that you have been sacarstic about those who talked like you
do. That's the only way I could thought of to give you credit.
\_ Gee, I thought people would only have reason to hate the US because
of stuff like unilateral invasions of Iraq, never mind xenophobic
ranting. We're starting to sound more and more like the countries
we're taught to hate...
\_ Actually, just about every country out there restricts the
ability of foreign nationals to come in and work. Nevermind when
it involves national labs. Complaining about it seems pretty
fucking weak to me, too. -jor
\_ I don't fear foreigners. I hate them. There's a big
difference. You're right, we should completely open our borders
like, uhm, uh, NO OTHER COUNTRY ON THE PLANET! DUH! They let
_you_ vote? As far as Iraq goes, when you're on BART and take
in a whiff of Iraqi sponsored anthrax, let us all know what
it feels like during your last three agonizing days of life.
I don't know where you grew up but no one "taught" me to hate
any countries. In fact, I don't "hate" any countries. I don't
like whining stupid foreign fucks coming here and bitching that
they don't have the rights that real citizens do. Don't like
it? TOUGH SHIT! Go back to the stinking third world pit you
came from and compare that with your lifestyle here. You've
spent too much time eating potstickers, hanging out with BH.
- descendant of a non-citizen foreign fuck
\_ While I agree that many jobs should be off limits to
foreigners, your frenzied response and hatred of
third world foreigners suggest to me that you are
someone who should be sent back to WWII era Imperial
Japanese Army to be slapped around by your lieutenants.
No, you do not qualify for the Wermacht.